Southern Wildfire Risk Assessment

The purpose of the Southern Wildfire Risk Assessment (SWRA) is to quantify and document the wildfire problem in the South. The SWRA is a scientifically-robust assessment that provides results that are repeatable, consistent and comparable among states. It provides baseline information that will allow southern fire managers to move forward with proactive fire management planning.

The objectives are to provide information necessary to support the following key priorities:

• Identify those areas that are currently most prone to wildfire
• Identify areas that may require additional tactical planning, specifically related to mitigation projects and community wildfire protection planning
• Provide information necessary to support resource and budget and funding requests in response to the wildfire risk
• Allow agencies to work together to define priorities and improve emergency response, particularly across jurisdictions
• Increase communication with local residents and the public to address community priorities and needs
• Plan and prioritize hazardous fuel treatment programs
• Establish a data repository and a series of software tools to support continued analysis and monitoring of wildfire risk across the South

The results of the SWRA will allow the southern states to ordinate areas of wildfire risk in a relative manner from low to high, for each community, county, congressional district, fire response zone, state and/or region. This will allow fire managers to prioritize and focus resources and funding efforts in those areas that need it most.

The primary output layer of the SWRA is the Level of Concern (LOC) index. It represents the overall wildfire risk. It combines the probability of an acre burning with the expected effects if a fire occurs. The higher the LOC output values, the higher the concern for suffering loss from a wildland fire.

Initiated by the Southern Group of State Foresters, the South is the first complete region in the nation to have applied the best available fire science to understanding the risks the region faces from wildfire. The results of the SWRA help the states coordinate with local communities and the federal government in addressing ways to mitigate these risks. In addition, the assessment offers the states a valuable tool to evaluate fuel mitigation scenarios prior to funding specific projects and can be utilized as a tool to model the effectiveness of these scenarios and monitor them over time. The identification of wildland fire risks provides the South with the ability to plan for mitigation but also with the ability to prepare and respond to wildland fires as they occur.