#ISSS2018 Corvallis

 3366 A SYSTEM DYNAMICS MODEL OF THE FIRE SUPPRESSION “TIPPING POINT” 
Matthew P Thompson, US Forest Service, Fort Collins, CO, USA, mpthompson02@fs.fed.us
Alex Masarie, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, USA, alex.masarie@gmail.com
Christopher J Dunn, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR, USA, Chris.Dunn@oregonstate.edu
Yu Wei, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO, USA, yu.wei@colostate.edu
David E Calkin, US Forest Service, Missoula, MT, USA, decalkin@fs.fed.us

In recent years, the fire science and management communities have turned to systems thinking principles to better address the challenges of managing wildfire in an ever-changing and increasingly complex world. A key theme is unraveling the “fire paradox,” which is essentially a reinforcing feedback loop where aggressive fire suppression in fireprone forests leads to an accumulation of hazardous fuels such that future fires burn with higher intensity and resistance to control, ultimately leading to greater demand for suppression. By instead capitalizing on opportunities for expanded use of fire as a tool to restore forest conditions and reduce hazards, managers can invert feedbacks wherein fire can act as more of a self-regulating mechanism. One barrier to such a change is uncertainty over questions of where, when, and how frequently fire response decisions can deviate from the status quo of aggressive suppression in order to achieve more desirable fire outcomes. We propose a systems dynamics model of a coupled human and natural fireprone system as a mechanism to address this question, focusing particularly on identifying the “tipping point,” i.e., the rate and magnitude of change in suppression decisions at which the long-run trajectory of risk reaches an inflection point and begins to decrease. In this presentation we will first discuss model formulation, highlighting key concepts and variables such as forest conditions, fuel loads, fire regime, fire-on-fire encounters, and resistance to control. We will then present preliminary results and outline future research directions.