Why Do Some Lands Receive More Wildfire Resources?
Incident: Railbelt Complex Wildfire
Released: 7/12/2009
Why do some large fires receive little attention while relatively small fires seem to get several crews and multiple pieces of equipment committed to them
Fire resources are committed to individual fires based upon direction in the Alaska Interagency Wildland Fire Management Plan (AIWFMP). The goal of this plan is to provide an opportunity, through cooperative planning, for land and resource managers/owners to accomplish fire-related, land-use and resource management objectives in a cost-efficient manner, consistent with owner, agency and departmental policies. Management options selected should be ecologically and fiscally sound, operationally feasible, and sufficiently flexible to respond to changes in objectives, fire conditions, land-use patterns, resource information, and technologies. The AIWFMP establishes four fire suppression response options:
Critical
Full
Modified
Limited
These wildland fire management options range from immediate and agressive suppression to periodic surveillance. The land manager/owner(s) select fire management option(s) for their lands from the four categories based upon their assessment of values at risk.
Critical Protection - Fires in these areas receive the highest suppression priority to protect human life, inhabited property, and
improvements identified by the land manager. These fires receive immediate, aggressive action depending on resource
availability.
Full Protection - This suppression option is designated on lands where a wildland fire may threaten cultural and historical sites,
uninhabited private property, natural resource high-value areas, and other values that do not invlove the protection of human life
and inhabited property. Fires in these areas receive suppression resources, depending on resource availability.
Modified Protection - This option provides a management level between Full and Limited. The intent is to balance acres burned
with suppression costs and to accomplish land and resource management objectives when conditions are favorable. Site-specific
actions are taken as warrented.
Limited Protection - Recognizes areas where the cost of suppression may exceed the value of the resources to be protected,
the environmental impacts of fire suppression activitis may have more negative immpacts on the resources than the effects of
the fire, or the exclusion of fire may be detrimental to the fire dependent ecosystem. Actions may be taken to keep a fire within
the boundary of the Management Option or to protect identified higher value areas/sites.
This method of prioritizing the dispatch of fire suppression resources ensures that: (1) human life, private property, and identified resources receive an appropriate level of protection with available firefighting resources, (2) the cost of the suppression effort is commensurate with values identified for protection, and (3) the ability of land manager/owner(s) to achieve their management objectives is optimized.
