Managing Wildland Fire Risk in Florida
Florida's Wildland Fire Risk Assessment (FRA), which was completed in 2002, is a statewide effort to develop a comprehensive suite of standardized, spatial data layers developed to support implementation of a statewide fuels management strategy. By maintaining focus on fire and fuel dynamics for use with scientifically credible local to statewide applications, the FRA builds on a statewide surface fuels map, fire history data from many agencies, and weather data collected over a period of 20 years. Change detection is currently being utilized to update the statewide surface fuels layer. The process used in the FRA builds on a process first applied in the Lake Tahoe Basin Land Management Unit. Subsequently, the methods used in the FRA have recently been applied to 13 southern States in the Southern Wildfire Risk Assessment.
- Introduction : Florida possesses a unique set of characteristics that make much of the State highly susceptible to wildfire.
- Wildland Fire Risk : SWRA ModelWebster's dictionary defines risk as "The possibility of suffering harm or loss." As one can see, there needs to be both a likelihood and effect of an action or event before one can incur a risk.
- Fire Effects : The Fire Effects Index is comprised of two input ratings: values impacted and suppression difficulty.
- Level of Concern Index : The Level of Concern Index is calculated as the Wildland Fire Susceptibility Index times the Fire Effects Index .
- Fire Response Accessibility Index : The Fire Response Accessibility Index (FRAI) is a relative measure of how long it would take initial attack resources to drive from their resource location to each cell.
- Uses and Application in Florida : Although it is generally believed that the goals and objectives were met, one point concerning the assessment should be emphasized.
Encyclopedia ID: p3499
