Skip to main content

The Alaska Reference Database originated as the standalone Alaska Fire Effects Reference Database, a ProCite reference database maintained by former BLM-Alaska Fire Service Fire Ecologist Randi Jandt. It was expanded under a Joint Fire Science Program grant for the FIREHouse project (The Northwest and Alaska Fire Research Clearinghouse). It is now maintained by the Alaska Fire Science Consortium and FRAMES, and is hosted through the FRAMES Resource Catalog. The database provides a listing of fire research publications relevant to Alaska and a venue for sharing unpublished agency reports and works in progress that are not normally found in the published literature.

Displaying 1 - 25 of 51

Kuligowski
As wildfires that threaten communities become more severe, there is an increasing need to understand human behavior in these situations, and evacuation decision-making and behavior in particular. A number of deaths have occurred in previous fires during the evacuation process.…
Year: 2020
Type: Media
Source: FRAMES

Podschwit, Cullen
The simultaneous occurrence of wildfire can hinder firefighting effectiveness via multiple mechanisms that might explain historical resource demand trends. We validate this hypothesis by using data from the Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity (MTBS) project to determine if…
Year: 2020
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES

Hudson, Bray, Blunck, Page, Butler
This work reports characteristics of embers generated by torching trees and seeks to identify the important physical and biological factors involved. The size of embers, number flux and propensity to ignite spot fires (i.e. number flux of ‘hot’ embers) are reported for several…
Year: 2020
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES

Faivre, Amoako, Bird, Conedera
Sparking FireSmart Policies in the EU: The Importance of an Integrated Fire Management Approach - Nicolas Faivre, Policy Officer, DG Research and Innovation (RTD), European Commission, Belgium The presentation will introduce the recent EU policy developments…
Year: 2020
Type: Media
Source: FRAMES

Shannon, Anand, Shotorban, Mahalingam
Fire interactions between multiple 1 m tall, 0.7 m diameter chamise shrubs was studied utilizing the Wildland-Urban Interface Fire Dynamics Simulator (WFDS, Mell et al., 2009). Two shrub arrangements were investigated. First, nine shrubs were placed in a 3x3 horizontal region.…
Year: 2020
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES

The 2019 McKinley Fire devastated a 10-mile stretch of homes along Alaska's Parks Highway. This video describes the fire and its aftermath through interviews with residents and fire professionals, and discusses ways to protect structures from wildfires. Useful websites about…
Year: 2020
Type: Media
Source: FRAMES

Alexander, Cruz
A 3-m between crown spacing is a commonly cited criterion found in the wildland-urban interface fire literature for minimizing the likelihood of a fully-developed crown fire from occurring in a conifer forest on level terrain. The validity of this general recommendation is…
Year: 2020
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES

Tymstra, Stocks, Cai, Flannigan
Wildfire management agencies in Canada are at a tipping point. Presuppression and suppression costs are increasing but program budgets are not. Climate change impacts and increasing interface values-at-risk are challenging suppression effectiveness and resulting in more wildfire…
Year: 2020
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES

Butler, Johnsson, Tang
Fences and mulch contribute to the spread of wildland-urban interface fires, acting both as ignition targets and as sources that may ignite nearby objects through direct flame contact and firebrand generation. This paper presents the findings from outdoor experiments that…
Year: 2020
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES

Noble, Paveglio
The increasing complexity of wildland fire management highlights the importance of sound decision making. Numerous fire management decision support systems (FMDSS) are designed to enhance science and technology delivery or assist fire managers with decision-making tasks. However…
Year: 2020
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES

Aydin, Selvi, Tao, Starek
This paper examines the potential use of fire extinguishing balls as part of a proposed system, where drone and remote-sensing technologies are utilized cooperatively as a supplement to traditional firefighting methods. The proposed system consists of (1) scouting unmanned…
Year: 2020
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES

Gaskill, Dumke, Palmer, Ruby, Domitrovich, Sol
Hiking with a pack is the highest-intensity task that wildland firefighters (WLFFs) perform during sustained activities related to wildland fire suppression. Firefighters perform this and other tasks together as a crew; this provides a unique model to evaluate select physical…
Year: 2020
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES

Belval, Stonesifer, Calkin
Wildland fire occurrence is highly variable in time and space, and in the United States where total area burned can vary substantially, acquiring resources (firefighters, engines, aircraft, etc.) to respond to fire demand is an important consideration. To determine the…
Year: 2020
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES

Huff, Kondragunta, Zhang, Hoff
Increasing development of exo-urban environments and the spread of urbanization into forested areas is making humans and forest ecosystems more susceptible to the risks associated with wildfires. Larger and more damaging wildfires are having a negative impact on forest ecosystem…
Year: 2020
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES

Al Abri, Grogan
The dramatic increase in the number of uncontrollable wildfires in the United States has become an important policy issue as they threaten valuable forests and human property. The derived stochastic dynamic model of this study is capable of determining optimal fuel treatment…
Year: 2020
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES

Suzuki, Manzello
A simple laboratory-scale experimental method was developed to study firebrand generation processes. As part of these experiments, Japanese wind facilities were used to elucidate the effect of wind speed on firebrand generation from structural materials. It was found that very…
Year: 2020
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES

O'Connor
Wildfire is one of the most contentious subjects affecting land managers, land owners, and the public. As a contagious process, the social, political, and ecological ramifications of wildfire response and eventual fire outcomes are not limited to where and when a fire occurs,…
Year: 2020
Type: Media
Source: FRAMES

Bento-Gonçalves, Vieira
Over the last decades, the different issues regarding the expansion of the wildland-urban interface (WUI) - particularly those related to fires - have spread around the world with particular exposure in the USA, Canada, Australia, and, more recently, in southern European…
Year: 2020
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES

Rossi, Kuusela
Research has suggested that excessive risk aversion is a key driver of rising federal suppression costs. To formally understand how alternative risk attitudes of contracted incident managers can affect a public fire management organization's demand for fire management effort, a…
Year: 2020
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES

Intini, Ronchi, Gwynne, Bénichou
Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) fires, a worldwide problem, are gaining more importance over time due to climate change and increased urbanization in WUI areas. Some jurisdictions have provided standards, codes and guidelines, which may greatly help planning, prevention and…
Year: 2020
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES

Tedim, Leone, McGee
Extreme Wildfire Events and Disasters: Root Causes and New Management Strategies highlights the urgent need for new methods to prepare and mitigate the effects of these events. Using a multidisciplinary, socio-ecological approach, the book discusses the roots of the problem,…
Year: 2020
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES

Daley, Morris, Franz, Adams
As of mid-September 2020, forest fires across the West Coast of the United States had burned down 5 million acres of forests, destroying communities and producing some of the worst air quality on the planet. How can this disaster spur reforestation efforts in North America and…
Year: 2020
Type: Media
Source: FRAMES

Brown, Saul
Isaac Saul of A Plus interviews Sara Brown, director of the USFS Fire Lab’s Fire, Fuels, and Smoke Sciences Program. Sara Brown explains how to stop wildfires from being major disaster events in the United States. The interview provides an overview about the fire situation in…
Year: 2020
Type: Media
Source: FRAMES

Sullivan, Campbell, Dennison, Brewer, Butler
Escape routes keep firefighters safe by providing efficient evacuation pathways from the fire line to safety zones. Effectively utilizing escape routes requires a precise understanding of how much time it will take firefighters to traverse them. To improve this understanding, we…
Year: 2020
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES

Mietkiewicz, Balch, Schoennagel, Leyk, St. Denis, Bradley
With climate-driven increases in wildfires in the western U.S., it is imperative to understand how the risk to homes is also changing nationwide. Here, we quantify the number of homes threatened, suppression costs, and ignition sources for 1.6 million wildfires in the United…
Year: 2020
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES