Interdisciplinary
Wildland fire science includes interdisciplinary components that cross-cut several focal areas. Research disciplines such as meteorology and climate can improve our understanding of the conditions that limit and promote wildland fire activity across multiple spatial and temporal scales. These disciplines are critical to improve short-term fire spread modeling as well as smoke emissions and dispersion predictions and are critical to improving the many systems used through wildland fire management. Much is still unknown about how atmospheric and topographic drivers influence short-term variations in near surface weather conditions, such as temperature, humidity and wind, and how these variations interact to promote wildland fire activity. Further, long-term variations in climate can inform ecologically-based vegetation management and community wildfire risk evaluations. Ultimately, interdisciplinary research can intersect with all other focal areas and its scientific advancement is critical to the Forest Service mission of managing landscapes for current and future generations.
Additionally, technologies such as terrestrial, airborne and spaceborne remote sensing platforms continue to offer ways to map and explore critical components of the wildland fire environment including fuels characteristics, fire activity/growth and fire effects. As such, remote sensing is a critical cross-cutting discipline that can inform and improve research activities in all other focal areas.
Further, the creation of science application and integration products is critical to transfer technology from fundamental research to operational systems that can provide access to the best available science for decision making. This includes both application development and technology transfer. This research intersects all other focal areas.
Projects in Interdisciplinary
Displaying 1 - 46 of 46
| An Evaluation of Wildland Fire Smoke Sensors 2017-2025 |
Wildland fires produce significant air pollution and real-time measurements of these pollutants are critical for mitigating the human health impacts of smoke. With climate change increasing the severity of the western U.S. wildfire season, there is an urgent need for new air pollution measurement technologies to reduce coverage gaps in existing… |
| ArcFuels 2005-present |
Vegetation and fuel management planning is a complex problem that requires advanced vegetation and fire behavior modeling and intensive spatial data analyses. Both the benefits and potential impacts of proposed treatments must be clearly demonstrated in the context of land management goals and public expectations. Potential fire behavior metrics,… |
| Assessing community wildfire exposure 2016-present |
The first comprehensive assessment of where public wildlands in the Western US potentially contribute wildfire exposure to communities. Predicting wildfire disasters presents a major challenge to the field of risk science, especially when fires are propagated over long distances through diverse fuel types and complex terrain. A good example is in… |
| Black Carbon from Fires in Northern Eurasia 2002-Present |
Northern Eurasia covers 20% of the global land mass and contains 70% of the boreal forest. During certain times of the year, black carbon (BC) in smoke plumes at high latitudes may be transported and deposited on Arctic ice, thereby accelerating ice melting. It is thus imperative to better understand daily sources, transport, and deposition of BC… |
| Carrying the Fire the Pikunii Way 2009-present |
Video and educational lesson about how and why the Pikunii (one branch of the Blackfeet Nation) people transported fire from one camp to another as they traveled along historical migration routes. This activity includes a complete lesson plan, examination of a Fire Carrier model, and a 12-minute video interview with Pikunii elder Marvin Weatherwax… |
| Climate Change on Global Fire Danger 2014-present |
Wildfires occur at the intersection of dry weather, available fuel, and ignition sources. Weather is the most variable and largest driver of regional burned area. Temperature, relative humidity, precipitation, and wind speed independently influence wildland fire spread rates and intensities. The alignment of multiple weather extremes, such as the… |
| Describing Wildland Fuels 2012-Present |
Considerable effort is expended to determine fuel loadings and to map those loadings across the landscape, yet there is little or no work being done to determine how to incorporate those measurements into the next generation of fire behavior models, such as physics-based models. Identifying critical spatial and temporal fuel characteristics… |
| Evaluating Fuel Treatment Effectiveness 2013-present |
Increasingly intense fire seasons, rapidly changing ecosystems, and an expanding wildland-urban interface all increase the hazard that fires pose to communities, watersheds, and ecosystems. Fuel treatments offer managers an opportunity to proactively mitigate threats to firefighters and communities as well as to maintain or restore healthy… |
| FastFuels: 3D Fuels for Next Generation Fire Models 2020-present |
Advanced 3D fire models offer new possibilities for detailed analysis of fuel treatments and prescribed fires. However, the spatially explicit, detailed 3D fuels data they require is difficult to get, particularly for large areas. FastFuels opens the door to this kind of modeling by combining existing fuels and spatial data with cutting edge… |
| February Five: Fire Lab Seminars for Managers 2024 |
In 2024, there are five Thursdays in February. To celebrate this rare event, the Fire Lab is hosting a series of five seminars that highlight new tools and research for managers. The “February Five” will occur during our regularly scheduled seminar series timeslot – Thursdays at 11am Mountain Time. Please join us on Teams. Select the titles below… |
| FFI: Ecological Monitoring 2006-present |
For a quick overview see our FFI: Ecological Monitoring Story Map FFI is designed to help managers fulfill monitoring requirements set forth in Federal legislation and agency policy. It supports scalable (project to landscape scale) monitoring at the field and research level, and encourages cooperative, interagency data management and information… |
| Fire Lab Seminar Series The Seminar Series runs from Fall to Spring |
The Missoula Fire Sciences Laboratory has been hosting an annual seminar series since 1998. Hour-long seminars are presented by Fire Lab employees and other researchers from throughout the world. Seminars cover current research and management about the natural world from a broad range of disciplines, but most seminars usually have a wildland fire… |
| Fire Modeling Services Framework (FMSF) 2007 - presetn |
FMSF is a place to run wildland fire behavior and effects models for use within other systems. It brings improved performance, consistent data, and faster analysis results. FMSF also provides a key feature to users by greatly reducing the Information Technology (IT) needs by hosting models and tools in one service. Generally speaking: FMSF hosts… |
| Fire Weather Alert System 2017-Present |
Image The Fire Weather Alert System (FWAS) is a mobile application that alerts on-the-ground firefighters to dangerous weather conditions approaching their area. Users set custom weather thresholds and the FWAS sends alerts when those thresholds are exceeded. FWAS monitors several types of weather… |
| Firefighter Safety 1996-present |
Perhaps one of the most critical decisions made by firefighters during daily fire management operations is the identification of suitable safety zones. As a consequence of 11 firefighters being killed on the Inaja Fire in 1957, the U.S. Forest Service issued a report recommending that firefighters identify safety zones at all times when fighting… |
| ForSys - Scenario planning model 2017 - present |
ForSys - Scenario planning model for multi-objective restoration and fuel management planning ForSys is a flexible platform for exploring landscape management scenarios and optimizing decisions in terms of where and how to achieve landscape restoration and fuel management goals. The model is spatially explicit and uses multi-criteria… |
| Fuel Treatment Effectiveness Monitoring (FTEM) 2016 - present |
The Fuel Treatment Effectiveness Monitoring (FTEM) application collects data that documents the effectiveness of fuel treatments on wildland fire behavior when a wildland fire intersects with a previously applied hazardous fuels reduction treatment. The effectiveness of fuel treatment activities directly measures success in protecting firefighters… |
| Fuels and Potential Fire Behavior in Balsam Woolly Adelgid-impacted Forests 2020-present |
We are developing a product and methodology that allows rapid assessment of fuels and potential fire hazard in forests impacted by the non-native balsam woolly adelgid (BWA) to better protect and improve the health of western America’s high-elevation fir forests. We will 1) compare fuel metrics derived from standard field procedures with aerial… |
| ICS-209-PLUS 2014 - 2023 |
Research-ready compilation of all-hazards operational data 1999-2020. These situation-reporting data can be used to relate large-fire activity to weather, fuel treatment activities, firefighting response, and a range of socioeconomic impacts. ICS-209-PLUS is a science-grade dataset mined from the public archive (1999–2020) of the US National… |
| Interagency Fuel Treatment Decision Support System (IFTDSS) 2016 - present |
The Interagency Fuel Treatment Decision Support System (IFTDSS) is a web-based application designed to make fuel treatment planning and analysis more efficient and effective. IFTDSS provides access to data and models through one simple user interface. It is available to all interested users, regardless of agency or organizational affiliation.… |
| LANDFIRE – Landscape Fire and Resource Management Planning 2004 - present |
This multi-partner program produces consistent, comprehensive, geospatial data and databases that describe vegetation, wildland fuel, and fire regimes across the United States and insular areas. LF's mission is to provide agency leaders and managers with a common "all-lands" data set of vegetation and wildland fire/fuels information for strategic… |
| Lodgepole fire history 2017-present |
Lodgepole pine-dominated forest is the third most extensive forest type in western North America, covering 15 million acres in the western United States. Over much of this extensive range, surprisingly little is known about historical fire regimes. While these regimes are commonly characterized as infrequent and stand-replacing, like those found… |
| LSim forest landscape management model 2017- present |
The Forest Vegetation Simulator was integrated with the FSim wildfire simulation model to conduct research on long term management and wildfire feedbacks. Forest landscape models (FLMs) are important tools used to address a wide range of forest management policy tradeoffs on public and private forests. Several recent studies using FLMs have… |
| Mapping and modeling fuels and fire at the Sycan Marsh, Oregon 2017 - present |
The research being performed through multidisciplinary collaboration efforts at TNC’s Sycan Marsh Preserve in Oregon is providing much needed data for fuel mapping efforts by linking surface fuel datasets with TLS and UAS data pre, during, and post-fire. It also provides essential data for fire mapping and behavioral understanding of forest and… |
| National Fire Danger Rating System 1994-present |
NFDRS applications involve two steps: a historical analysis to set appropriate fire danger breakpoints and an operational system to provide NFDRS fuel moistures and indices in real-time. Historical analyses are performed by combining fire weather and fire occurrence data in Fire Family Plus. Operational indices are produced by the Weather… |
| New & Improved 7-Day Wildland Fire Outlook 2017-present |
RMC is developing a system of statistical weather-based models for forecasting wildland fire potential & fire risk out to 7-10 days on a uniform national grid. The development of this gridded system of predictive equations has been planned to proceed in 4 phases with R&D tasks being executed under a Joint Venture Agreement with Colorado… |
| Predicting Tree Growth and Beetle Susceptibility After Fire 2019-present |
We are creating tools to inform post-fire decisions that predict post-fire growth rates and mortality levels due to fire alone or fire+beetle for ponderosa pine (PP) and Douglas-fir (DF). The models in the tools will account for tree size, fire injury, site productivity, changes in competition, and beetle pressure. The project will also validate… |
| RiskMonitor 2023-present |
The Forest Service Wildfire Crisis Strategy (WCS) sets ambitious goals to reduce risk to communities in the western United States by increasing fuel reduction treatments on and off Forest Service lands. A first step toward achieving these goals is to understand and quantify wildfire risk to the places people live and the critical infrastructure… |
| RxCadre Project 2012-present |
Obtaining Integrated, Quality-assured Fuels, Fire, and Atmospheric Data for Development and Evaluation of Fuels, Fire Behavior, Smoke, and Fire Effects Models The lack of co-located, multi-scale measures of pre-fire fuels, active fire processes, and post-fire effects hinders our ability to tackle fundamental fire science questions. The lack of… |
| SERDP RC20-Closing Gaps 2020-present |
This project responds to the Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program (SERDP)’s FY 2020 Statement of Need: “DoD WILDLAND FIRE MANAGEMENT RESEARCH FOR IMPROVED MILITARY LAND USE”, for which the overarching objective was “to improve understanding of self-organization of convective structures and near-fire smoke plume development for… |
| Sharing Expertise 2008-present |
Since 2008, the Fire, Fuel, and Smoke Science Program has worked with the University of Montana, the University of Idaho, and the Rocky Mountain Research Station’s Wildland Fire Management RD&A Program in a University-Forest Service partnership with a mission to improve the management of wildland fire by integrating science, technology,… |
| Spring Dip 2012-Present |
Both firefighters and fire scientists have observed a period of peak crown fire activity in the Great Lakes area during spring when a dip in foliar moisture content occurs. For decades, the cause and timing of this ‘dip’ have been poorly understood. It is therefore important to understand the drivers of this dip in order to improve wildland… |
| Surface Wind Measurements 2010-present |
There is a lack of high resolution measurements of wind speed and direction with which to test wind model accuracy. This project is directed at collecting needed data sets in mountainous terrain. Wind predictions in complex terrain are important for a number of applications including wildland fire behavior, transport and dispersion of pollutants… |
| Surface Wind Modeling 2002 - present |
High resolution surface wind modeling in support of fire management Wind can be the dominant environmental variable affecting wildland fire intensity and spread. When fire is burning in mountainous terrain, winds can vary widely in speed and direction over scales of 3 to 200 feet. The result is rapid changes in fire intensity at small scales that… |
| Tenderfoot Creek Experimental Forest 1961-present |
For a more indepth overview, see our TCEF Story Map. The Tenderfoot Creek Experimental Forest (TCEF) encompasses the headwaters of Tenderfoot Creek in the Little Belt mountains of central Montana.TCEF is uniquely suited to study lodgepole pine ecology and forest hydrology. Image The Tenderfoot Creek… |
| The Fireshed Registry 2019-present |
Prioritizing forest and fuel management investments to reduce wildfire risk to developed areas The Fireshed Registry is a geospatial dashboard and decision tool built in ArcGIS online. It provides an interactive system to view a wide array of information about firesheds and monitor progress towards risk reduction from management investments. The… |
| TreeMap: A tree-level model of the forests of the United States 2012-present |
Machine learning matched forest plot data with biophysical characteristics of the landscape to produce a seamless tree-level forest map. The TreeMap 2016 dataset is a spatial model of the trees in continental US forests. It provides detailed spatial information on forest characteristics including a list of trees for each pixel (with tree species… |
| U.S. Wildfires 2010-present |
A Spatial Database of U.S. Wildfires Wildfire occurrence records provide baseline information that is essential for wildfire management and research in the United States. However, there are multiple federal, state, and local entities with wildfire protection and reporting responsibilities in the United States, and no single, unified system of… |
| Weather Information Management System (WIMS) Support 2015-present |
The U.S. National Fire Danger Rating System (NFDRS) is used by all federal and most state fire management agencies for assessing seasonal fire severity across the nation. The application that hosts the NFDRS is the Washington Office Fire and Aviation Management’s (WO F&AM) Weather Information Management System (WIMS) located at the USDA… |
| Wildfire Hazard Potential 2008-present |
Wildfire Hazard Potential* for the United States The wildfire hazard potential (WHP) map is a raster geospatial product produced by the USDA Forest Service, Fire Modeling Institute that can help to inform evaluations of wildfire hazard or prioritization of fuels management needs across very large landscapes.Our specific objective with the WHP map… |
| Wildfire Risk in the Sagebrush Biome 2020-present |
A quantitative wildfire risk assessment is underway for the sagebrush biome in the western US to inform investments in hazardous fuel treatments, including those intended to protect sage-grouse habitat. Within the Great Basin alone, hundreds of thousands of acres of highly imperiled sagebrush ecosystems are lost or degraded each year as a result… |
| Wildfire Risk to Communities 2020-present |
Wildfire Risk to Communities is a free, easy-to-use website with interactive maps, charts, and resources to help communities understand, explore, and reduce wildfire risk. The website was created by the USDA Forest Service under the direction of Congress and is designed to be a starting point to help community leaders, such as elected officials,… |
| Wildland Fire Decision Support System (WFDSS) 2005 - present |
WFDSS is currently the only web-based application that allows interagency and interdepartmental fire staff to access a one-stop suite of decision support tools while being in compliance with policy, guidance, and documentation requirements. It is embedded in standard fire training courses, is the only place to run certain fire models like FSPro,… |
| Wildland Fire Investment Planning System (WFIPS) 2016-Present |
Purpose: The WFIPS system is intended to conduct risk-based analysis of fire management activities and wildfire outcomes for alternative investments in Preparedness, Hazardous Fuels, and Large Fire Suppression. Analysis occurs at user-specified scales from local (i.e. District, National Forests) to Regional and National for all lands and all… |
| WindNinja 2005-present |
WindNinja is a computer program that computes spatially varying wind fields for wildland fire application. See the WindNinja project website for more details. Also, check out WindNinja-Mobile application. Take a look at our WindNinja story map to see a quick overview. Wind is one of the most influential environmental factors affecting… |
| WindNinja-Mobile 2016-Present |
Take a look at our WindNinja story map to see a quick overview of WindNinja and WindNinja Mobile. ESRI User Story: Missoula Fire Sciences Lab Launches New Wind Modeling Mobile App to Help Firefighters in the Field ESRI ArcWatch: Fighting Fire with WindNinja Mobile The WindNinja computer program is a powerful tool for predicting wind fields in… |