Wildfire as Seen through a Statistical Eye

• Activity Number: 146
• Type: Topic Contributed
• Date/Time: Monday, August 9, 2004 : 2:00 PM to 3:50 PM
• Sponsor: Section on Statistics and the Environment
• Author(s): Sim Larkin*+ and Timothy Brown
• Companies: U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service and Desert Research Institute
• Keywords: wildfire ; statistical application

Abstract

In 1905, the Transfer Act delivered vast reserves of American forest to the U.S. Forest Service for administration, in large part because of a perceived wildfire problem. This action began the formalization of fire management from which modern fire protection has evolved. From the beginning, fire control was not taken strictly as administrative--scientific research was considered an integral part of solving the problem. In 1911, future chief forester William Greeley stated that "firefighting is a matter of scientific management, just as much as silviculture or range improvement." With strong European influence, fire research supported fire policy for many years. In the 1950s and '60s, fire research became a more physical-based scientific problem. In the 1970s and '80s, fire behavior and fire ecology dominated a profuse scientific effort. From the 1990s to present, fire science is often viewed as a global topic, intermingled with climate change, regional air quality and dynamical ecosystem feedbacks. Through all of the eras, statistics has been a vital part of both the scientific research and management decisions.