For large wildfires and wildland fire use (WFU) fir es for which there is a federal response, Incident Command Summary reports (known a s ICS-209 reports) are created on a near-daily basis. ICS-209 reports contain useful i nformation about particular fires or fire complexes from the incident command team on the gro und, such as descriptions of the fuel loading, growth potential, and type of fire. Howev er, ICS-209 reports also have several limitations. Daily estimates of actively burning a re s are required, but ICS-209 reports provide only the ignition point of the fire and an estimate of the total area burned over the lifetime of the fire. For large fires, active flame fronts can mov e dozens of kilometers from the original ignition point of the burn. More importantly, ICS-209 repor ts are only created for a small subset of fires. Fires that are not tracked with ICS-209 reports inc lude prescribed burns, agricultural burns, and wildfires for which there is no federal response. Taken together, these missing fires represent a large fraction of the total area burned and resulti ng smoke emissions. The National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) reports that at least 9000 km 2 of prescribed burning has been accomplished each year since 2001 in the US, representing up to 40% of the total area burned (http://www.nifc.gov/fire_info/fire_stats.htm).
分享
引用
