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 The database provides a listing of fire research publications relevant to Alaska and a venue for sharing unpublished agency reports and works in progress that are not normally found in the published literature.
Type
Topic
Year
Displaying 1 - 25 of 74
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
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
We have devised a rule of thumb for obtaining a first approximation of a fire’s spread rate that wildland fire operations personnel may find valuable in certain situations. It is based on the premise that under certain conditions wind speed is the dominant factor in determining…
Year: 2019
Type: Document
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
Assessing risk in a postfire landscape: are currently available tools good for the local land owner?
Wildfires and events that follow such as flooding and erosion are natural disturbances in many ecosystems. However, when these types of postfire events threaten life, property, and resources they become a concern for resource managers, communities, and private landowners. A…
Year: 2019
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
CMATs work closely with incident management teams, Forest Service or other land management agencies, community residents and leaders to identify mitigation opportunities before a wildfire impacts the community. CMATs work with local partners to identify and help them resolve…
Year: 2019
Type: Media
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
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
Blunck, Butler, Bailey, Wagenbrenner
Spot fires caused by lofted embers (i.e., firebrands) can be a significant factor in the spread of wildland fires. Embers can be especially dangerous near the wildland urban interface (WUI) because of the potential for the fire to be spread near or among structures. Many studies…
Year: 2019
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
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
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
Caton-Kerr, Tohidi, Gollner
During wildland fires, firebrands form once they break off of burning vegetation or structures. Many are then lofted into the fire plume where they are transported long distances ahead of the fire front, igniting new “spot” fires as they land. To date, very few studies have been…
Year: 2019
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
Hedayati, Bahrani, Zhou, Quarles, Gorham
Generation of firebrands from various fuels has been well-studied in the past decade. Limited details have been released about the methodology for characterizing firebrands such as the proper sample size and the measurement process. This study focuses on (1) finding the minimum…
Year: 2019
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
Takahashi
Each year, fires in the wildland-urban interface (WUI)—the place where homes and wildlands meet or intermingle—have caused significant damage to communities. To contribute to firefighter and public safety by reducing the risk of structure ignition, fire blankets for wrapping a…
Year: 2019
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
Alexander
Heuristic approaches to problem solving, commonly called rules of thumb, employ practical, quick, in the moment, methods that are not intended to be strictly accurate or reliable in every situation but sufficient for most decision making situations, especially when there is…
Year: 2019
Type: Media
Source: FRAMES
Hudson, Blunck
Spot fires caused by lofted embers (i.e. firebrands) can be a significant factor in the spread of wildfires. Embers can be especially dangerous near the wildland-urban interface (WUI) because of the potential for the fire to be spread near or on structures. This work sought to…
Year: 2019
Type: Document
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
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
Ballard
arget Audience: Fire Supervisors, Program Managers, Planners, Analysts, Technical specialists – all interested
Topic/Description: Advanced functionality of Wildfire Risk Assessment Portals (WRAP), for informing CWPPs, tracking treatments and sending polygons back to LANDFIRE
Year: 2020
Type: Media
Source: FRAMES