Scientists with the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service (ARS) and the University of Montana have developed a way to forecast which of the Great Basin's more than 60 million acres have the highest probability of a large rangeland fire.
Scientists with the U.S. Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service (ARS) and the University of Montana have developed a way to forecast which of the Great Basin's more than 60 million acres have the highest probability of a large rangeland fire.
The forecasts come from a model developed by the researchers that combines measures of accumulated annual and perennial grass vegetation that is potential fire fuel with recent weather and climate data. When integrated, this information can be translated into maps showing the likelihood of a large wildfire—greater than 1,000 acres—across the Great Basin. These forecasts also can be scaled down to predict fire risk for counties or even single pastures.
Great Basin rangeland fire probability maps for the rangeland fire season, roughly June through September, are posted on the Rangeland Analysis Platform. Two new research articles discussing details and utility of the new model are part of a special issue of Rangeland Ecology & Management. The first paper used vegetation data from the Rangeland Analysis Platform alongside historical fire data from the Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity dataset to build fire-prediction models for the Great Basin using 32 years of historical weather, vegetation, and fire data. The second paper extends the fire probability work from analysis into how practitioners can use this information to make decisions for the fire season.
Read More at: U.S. Department of Agriculture - Agricultural Research Service
The probability of wildfires striking locations in Great Basin rangelands can now be forecast with a new model developed by ARS scientists and their collaborators. (Photo Credit: ARS-USDA)
