Applying landscape principles to fire hazard reduction

Fire spreads in a specifically spatial manner, which suggests the applicability of percolation models to the risk reduction problem. It is shown that under fairly general conditions a threshold exists below which a landscape becomes essentially fireproof. Arranging treated acres into a grid, analogous to bulkheads on a ship, drastically reduces the acreage that must be treated to achieve a fireproof condition. Such compartmentation of the landscape yields a much higher leverage (ratio of acres saved to acres treated). Certain landscape features create updrafts that spread fire particularly far. Treating fuels in such areas yields high leverage. Fire shadow effects were replicated by the simulation and showed a possible mechanism for amplifying treatment effectiveness. Either fuel reduction programs or commercial forestry can be used to achieve hazard reduction without excessive costs if spatial aspects of fire spread are taken into account. (C) 2004 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.