WILDLAND FIRE SUPPRESSION NEEDED: INITIALATTACK SUCCESS

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WILDLAND FIRE SUPPRESSION NEEDED INITIAL-ATTACK
SUCCESS
Presentation by Frank Greulich
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AN EFFECTIVE RESPONSE USING AIRTANKER RETARDANT
DROPS
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A MODEL OVERVIEW
A user-friendly, spreadsheet-based procedure for
estimating airtanker initial-attack cost
performance
which provides exceptional precision and
flexibility in specifying the spatial
distribution of fire starts
and which quickly generates cost estimates based
on exact flight-distance parameters.
click to continue
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EXAMPLE OF COST ESTIMATION

• Use of Dobson's data (1965) to estimate the cost
  of the Canadair CL-215 for "one-strike
  initial-attack" as described by Hodgson and
  Newstead (1978) and McDonald (1979).

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DOBSONS DATA ON THE CL-215

• Cost 1.15 0.0891 Dist 0.0449 Dist2
• Where cost is given in cents per liter of
  airdropped water and Dist(ance) is the one-way
  flight distance from the airbase to the fire in
  100s of kilometers

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ONE-STRIKE INITIAL-ATTACK

• In this example the one-strike initial-attack
  model for skimmer aircraft is used.
• The airtanker drops water scooped from nearby
  sources until refueling becomes necessary thus
  ending initial-attack by
• that particular aircraft.

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MODEL ANALYSIS
A Microsoft Excel program is used to evaluate the
airtanker initial-attack model
- Existing airbases can be evaluated
- The optimal airbase location can be identified
- Constrained optimization of airbase location
may be done
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THE INITIAL-ATTACK REGION - 1st EXAMPLE
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MODELLING RESULTS - 1st EXAMPLE
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GENERATING MODEL RESULTS
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Define the regions with bounding line segments
Assign fire occurrence probabilities to each
region
Locate the airbase if appropriate
Enter the constraint(s) if appropriate
Run the Excel program and examine results
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A GENERAL INITIAL-ATTACK REGION - 2nd EXAMPLE
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MODELLING RESULTS - 2nd EXAMPLE
ECost 1.15 0.0891 EDist 0.0449
EDist2 ECost 1.15 0.0891 (2.3197)
0.0449 (5.9412) ECost 1.62 (cents per liter
of water dropped)
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COMPARATIVE ADVANTAGES
- Generates exact moments of the flight-distance
distribution
- Models areas, lines and points as possible
fire-start locations
- Provides exceptionally fast computational
speeds including optimization
- Employs a commonly available and familiar
spreadsheet program
- Offers high internal consistency due to its
programming simplicity
- Is solidly based on analytical procedures
vetted through refereed-journal articles
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MODEL DEVELOPMENT - NEXT PHASE

• Front-end for GIS data importing
• Excel macros for data formatting
• Scaled-up proof-of-concept run

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REFERENCES CITED

• 1. Dobson, N.R. 1965. "The economics of the
  Canadair CL-215 in the waterbomber and passenger
  transport roles." Canadair Ltd., Montreal,
  Quebec. OER-452. 13 p.
• 2. Hodgson, M.J. and R.G. Newstead. 1978.
  Location-allocation models for one-strike
  initial attack of forest fires by airtankers.
  Can. J. For. Res. 8(2)145-154.
• 3. McDonald, C.S. 1979. Air tankers in
  Alberta. In Proceedings of the International
  Fire Management Workshop, Oct. 31 Nov. 1, 1978.
  D. Quintilio (ed.), Edmonton, Alberta. Northern
  Forest Research Centre Information Report
  NOR-X-215. 89 p.

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PICTURE CREDITS

• 1 John McColgan, Fairbanks, Alaska
• 2 http//www.photos.blm.gov
• 3 http//www.srh.noaa.gov
• 4 http//www.or.blm.gov
• 5 http//www.for.gov.bc.ca
• 6 http//envweb.env.gov.ab.ca