Geographic information systems: Providing information for wildland fire planning

Controlling wildfires within the wildland/urban interface has proven to be the most complex challenge facing wildland fire agencies. Although program improvements to increase the efficiency of interface suppression efforts have been suggested, the availability of information about the wildfire environment remains a critical resource for wildland fire planning. Geographic Information Systems (GISs) can provide the technology to store, manipulate, analyze, and display spatially oriented information in a form necessary for efficient fire planning and incident decision making. Complex map and attribute information, including vegetation types, fuels models, weather patterns, topography, fire suppression environment, landuse characteristics, and microenvironmental features, can be rapidly summarized and integrated. This integrated information can be used to create unique polygons useful in predicting fire behavior, allocating fire suppression resources, and as an aid in planning land use. Simplified user interfaces and the portability of new hardware systems will allow GISs to be used at every level of wildland fire planning.