Description

We report the results of a questionnaire and workshop that sought to gain a better and deeper understanding of the contemporary information needs of wildland fire and fuels managers. Results from the questionnaire indicated that the decision to suppress a wildland fire was most often influenced by factors related to safety and that the decision to allow a fire to burn was influenced by a variety of factors that varied according to land management objectives. We also found that managers anticipated an increase in the use of wildland fire, but that these increases will be moderate due to a variety of constraints that will continue to limit the use of wildland fire. From the workshop, we learned that managers will need to become increasingly strategic with their fire and fuels management planning, and that the information used to support tactical fire operations may prove to be insufficient. Furthermore, the managers participating in the workshop indicated the functional linkage between land management and fire management planning is lacking. We suggest that effective fire management planning requires information on the benefits and risks to a wide variety of values at landscape scales, integration with land management objectives, and a long-term perspective.