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Researcher(s):
Shawn Bolker Nico Farrell Isabelle Russenberger Jon Hosch
ENVS course(s): 330 Initiated: January 2018 Completed: April 2018 Go to project site
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Framing Question: How does fire risk influence the development of land management policy?
Focus Question: How has land management by the Columbia River Gorge Commission been influenced by the fire risk associated with the topography of the area?
This research focuses on how land management by the Columbia River Gorge Commission has been influenced by the fire risk associated with the topography of the area, within the larger frame how fire risk influences the development of land management policy in general. Fire risk has increasingly been a consideration in land management, as climate change lengthens fire seasons, and fire suppression is expected to consume 67% of the Forest Service’s budget by 2025 (US Forest Service and US Department of Agriculture 2015). The Columbia River Gorge Commission's management plan serves as a situated context for this issue. The plan sets regulations of buildings and management of forests in place for an area overlapping parts of both Oregon and Washington state, including both mountainous and low-lying areas (Columbia River Gorge Commission 2011).
Our methodology includes an extensive GIS analysis of the topology of the area, drawing Fire Modeling Institute and Forest Service data for the region to identify how slopes, elevation, and past fire occurrence and suppression strategies have affected planning. Another element is a detailed qualitative analysis of the Columbia River Gorge Commission management plan, including both fire prevention and fire mitigation strategies, and their degree of explicit linkage to known fire risk.
We find significant connections between previous fire causes and the measures present in the current plan (both outdoor fires and power lines are prominent), while in other areas the plan does not fully address potential links between policy and fire risk. In particular, controlled burns are only briefly mentioned as an ecological tool, and do not have an explicit link to fire risk in the past or future. We also find that the steeper slopes and higher elevations shape the contours of fire risk significantly, and it is these areas in which there is both heightened risk and lower capability for many strategies to prevent or mitigate fires. These findings may help construct a more complete image of how future plans can address these components of fire, and may serve to illustrate the factors influencing plans in other regions with similar topological characteristics.
Background References
Columbia River Gorge Commission. 2011. “Management Plan | Columbia River Gorge Commission.” Oregon: USDA Forest Service. http://www.gorgecommission.org/management-plan/plan.
US Forest Service, and US Department of Agriculture. 2015. “The Rising Cost of Wildfire Operations: Effects on the Forest Service’s Non-Fire Work.”