Saving the forest by reducing fire severity: Selective fuels treatment and scheduling

Wildfire is a natural process which can lead to a variety of conditions in a forested landscape, some quite destructive. Whatever the cause of a fire, no one questions that destructive fires often occur during certain weather events where litter (woody debris from trees) and ladder fuels are abundant. The US Forest Service has implemented a program to reduce litter and ladder fuels along with thinning of stands in order to mitigate the extent and severity of fires, especially in areas surrounding critical habitat. Fuels reduction/treatment plans are expensive and therefore must be planned over a period of years, often two decades or more. This chapter presents an application of a location-scheduling model which has been developed for the US Forest Service to determine when and where fuels treatments are to be implemented. The model itself is an integer linear programming problem, which has been embed-ded in a decision support system called iFASST. This modeling system is quite flexible, and because of its flexibility has now been used in many of the National Forests in California.