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 The database provides a listing of fire research publications relevant to Alaska and a venue for sharing unpublished agency reports and works in progress that are not normally found in the published literature.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 92
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
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
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
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
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
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
Mueller, Mell, Simeoni
Large eddy simulation (LES) based computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulators have obtained increasing attention in the wildland fire research community, as these tools allow the inclusion of important driving physics. However, due to the complexity of the models, individual…
Year: 2014
Type: Document
Source: TTRS
Jeffrey
From the text ... 'As cities grow in population, they tend to expand outward into formerly undeveloped wildland areas. Since much of the expansion on the urban edge consists of residential properties, an increasing number of newer homes are located in close proximity to natural…
Year: 2014
Type: Document
Source: TTRS
Stephens, Burrows, Buyantuyev, Gray, Keane, Kubian, Liu, Seijo, Shu, Tolhurst, van Wagtendonk
Mega-fires are often defined according to their size and intensity but are more accurately described by their socioeconomic impacts. Three factors -- climate change, fire exclusion, and antecedent disturbance, collectively referred to as the 'mega-fire triangle' -- likely…
Year: 2014
Type: Document
Source: TTRS
Butry, Prestemon, Thomas
The number of smoking-caused wildfires has been falling nationwide. In national forests in 2011, smoking-caused wildfires represented only 10% of their 1980 level. No other cause of wildfire has experienced this level of decline. For 12 states, we evaluate the rate of smoking-…
Year: 2014
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES, TTRS
Sutphen
From the text ... 'More than 80 percent of all wildfires in Florida occur within 1 mile of wildland-urban inferface (WUI) areas. Fires in WUI areas often present challenges for fire response, suppression, and public safety, in part because wildfire suppression may involve…
Year: 2014
Type: Document
Source: TTRS
Stein, Menakis, Carr, Comas, Stewart, Cleveland, Bramwell, Radeloff
From the text ... 'Fire historically has played a fundamental ecological role in many of America's wildland areas. However, the increasing number of homes in the wildland-urban interface (WUI), associated impacts on lives and property from wildfire, and escalating costs of…
Year: 2014
Type: Document
Source: TTRS
Mowery, Prudhomme
From the text ... 'A fire adapted community accepts wildfire as part of the natural landscape and takes responsibility for its risk. Community members understand the risk and have proactively implemented collaborative mitigation actions to successfully survive fire. Those…
Year: 2014
Type: Document
Source: TTRS
From the text ... 'The performance of homes in three traditionally built communities and that of three master planned communities, employing the concept known as 'shelter-in-place,' was examined. The shelter-in-place communities performed much better with significantly fewer…
Year: 2014
Type: Document
Source: TTRS
Deaton
From the text ... 'Engaging in a fire-preparedness dialogue is particularly important for the fire departments because national studies have shown the firefighters are uniquely respected in their communities and can project a trusted voice to the public-preparedness appeal.'
Year: 2014
Type: Document
Source: TTRS
Evers, Ager, Nielsen-Pincus, Palaiologou, Bunzel
Risk management typologies and their resulting archetypes can structure the many social and biophysical drivers of community wildfire risk into a set number of strategies to build community resilience. Existing typologies omit key factors that determine the scale and mechanism…
Year: 2019
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
Suzuki, Manzello
Firebrands generated from structures are known to be a source of rapid flame spread within communities in large outdoor fires, such as wildland-urban (WUI) fires, and urban fires. It is important to better understand firebrand generation mechanism to prevent structure ignitions…
Year: 2019
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
Hakes, Salehizadeh, Weston-Dawkes, Gollner
The cause of the majority of structure losses in wildland-urban interface fires is ignition via firebrands, small pieces of burning material generated from burning vegetation and structures. To understand the mechanism of these losses, small-scale experiments designed to capture…
Year: 2019
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
Gwynne, Ronchi, Bénichou, Kinateder, Kuligowski, Gomaa, Adelzadeh
Wildland‐urban interface (WUI) fire incidents are likely to become more severe and will affect more and more people. Given their scale and complexity, WUI incidents require a multidomain approach to assess their impact and the effectiveness of any mitigation efforts. The authors…
Year: 2019
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
Cruz, Alexander
Key message: The collective analysis of a relatively large number of wildfire observations documented in conifer forests, dry eucalypt forests and temperate shrublands revealed that the forward rate of fire spread is roughly 10% of the average 10-m open wind speed, provided both…
Year: 2019
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
Wessies, Chang, Marr, Ezekoye
Wildland firebrands are known to ignite materials in attic spaces of homes. To clarify the effects of choices in attic insulation materials for homes located at the wildland urban interface, this study seeks to characterize the effects of firebrand characteristics on the…
Year: 2019
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
Rapp
A significant amount of research has examined what motivates people living in the WUI to mitigate their wildfire risk, but drawing over-arching conclusions is difficult given the myriad of ways researchers have conceptualized and operationalized preparedness. This webinar…
Year: 2019
Type: Media
Source: FRAMES