A Wildfire Risk Assessment Framework for Land and Resource Management

Wildfires—unplanned wildland fires—can result in significant, long-lasting impacts to ecological, social, and economic systems; therefore, it is necessary to identify and quantify the risks posed by wildfire, and to subsequently develop cost-effective mitiga-tion strategies. To do so, fire and fuel managers require information on where fires are likely to occur, the intensity at which they might occur, and with what impacts to highly valued resources and assets (HVRAs; that is, the things we care about). Managers need to assess wildfire risk.