The California Fire Economics Simulator (CFES2)

Background

The California Fire Economics Simulator, Version 2 (CFES2) gives CDF managers a powerful tool to evaluate the department's initial attack fire protection organization. CFES2 facilitates a wide range of "what if" analyses to help managers anticipate the consequences of organizational changes by measuring the capability of initial attack forces to contain wildfires before they can become large and damaging.

The MS-DOS computer program is the culmination of years of development work by CDF and UC Berkeley researchers. CFES2 builds upon the knowledge gained during the development and use of a deterministic model, CFES-IAM Version 1, which was installed in CDF ranger units and contract counties around 1990. CFES-IAM Version 1 is based largely on the Initial Action Assessment (IAA) model of the National Fire Management Analysis System, which federal wildland fire agencies use to determine fire protection budget levels. IAA and CFES-IAM version 1 model initial attack organizations operating under "average" or "typical" fire season conditions, but CDF managers found they needed a model with greater realism, one that simulates critical conditions associated with initial attack system failure, including extreme fire spread rates and multiple fire starts.

CFES2 gets many of its key simulation parameters from probability distributions. These distributions provide a realistic simulation of fire starts, fire behavior and institutional response and productivity over time. CDF managers can achieve greater realism by including various constraints on the availability of fire suppression resources and through the use of new and sophisticated methods for modeling containment strategies and tactics.

The California Fire Plan uses CFES2 to determine the Level of Service (LOS) rating provided by the state-funded initial attack organization. The LOS rating is the ratio of successful fire suppression efforts to the total fire workload, and measures initial attack success and failure rates throughout California wildlands. This analysis will provide information to the Board of Forestry so that it may evaluate performance of the department in meeting its statutory mandate to provide "equal protection to lands of similar type."

Animations: A Simple View of How CFES2 Works

Details
A CFES2 simulation "run" produces thousands of initial attack events for a given scenario (i.e., set of parameters and assumptions). Parameters for the simulations come from a variety of data sources, including historical fire reports, daily and hourly weather observations, expert opinion surveys and professional knowledge.

Disclaimer
Please note that this model is not used to determine how a specific fire should be attacked, but rather, to help organizations like CDF and cooperating agencies improve the overall effectiveness and efficiency of fire protection services.

The Simulation
Click on the numbered animations below to get a feel for how CFES2 works. These animations show in a very simplified way the key steps the model takes to simulate initial attack activity over a variety of conditions. Before you start your tour, it would be a good idea to understand the spatial context for the simulation. Ready? Let's look at the process of simulation, focusing on a single simulated day of fire activity:

1. What fire season is it?
2. Do fires occur?
3. If so, then how many fires occur?
4. What is the ignition time?
5. What is the rate of spread?
6. What is the dispatch level? How many suppression resources of each type should be sent?)
7. What resources are available? (Create list for dispatch.)
8. What are the fireline production rates (feet per minute) for each resource?
9. Is the fire contained?

View a sample CFES2 "event list" output screen

Bibliography

Fried, J.S. and B.D. Fried. 1996. Simulating Wildfire Containment with Realistic Tactics. Forest Science 42:267-281.

Fried, J.S. and J.K. Gilless, 1993. Simulating initial attack: stochastic formulation brings risk consideration to
fire protection planning. Proceedings of the International Symposium on Systems Analysis and Management Decisions in Forestry, Valdivia, Chile, March 8-12, 1993 pp. 76-94.

Fried, J.S. 1992. Stochastic simulation of initial attack on wildland fire.
Ph.D. Dissertation, University of California, Berkeley. 183 p.

Torn, M.S. and J.S. Fried. 1992. Predicting the impacts of global warming on wildland fire. Climatic Change 21:(3)257-274.

Fried, J.S., J.K. Gilless and B.D. Fried. 1991. CFES 2 -- A wildland fire protection planning model with a risk dimension. Pacific Rim Forestry -- Bridging the World, Proceedings of the 1991 Society of American Foresters National Convention, San Francisco, California. August 4-7, 1991. 536-537.

Fried, J.S. and M.S. Torn. 1991. Modeling the effects of climate warming on wildfire severity in California. pp. 377-385 in Proceedings of the 1991 Symposium on Systems Analysis in Forest Resources, Charleston, South Carolina. March 3-7, 1991. USDA Forest Service General Technical Report SE-4.

Gilless, J.K. and J. S. Fried. 1991. Implementation of a wildland fire protection planning system by a state resource management agency: simulation proves more useful than optimization. pp. 312-319 in Proceedings of the 1991 Symposium on Systems Analysis in Forest Resources, Charleston, South Carolina. March 3-7, 1991. USDA Forest Service General Technical Report SE-74.

Lee, G., J.S. Fried, T.Z. Zhao and J.K. Gilless. 1991. Fireline production rates in California: expert opinion-based distributions. Bulletin 1929. Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources, University of California, Oakland, California.

Fried, J.S. and M.S. Torn. 1990. Analyzing localized climate impacts with the Changed Climate Fire Modeling System. Natural Resource Modeling 4(2):229-253.

Fried, J.S. and J.K. Gilless. 1989. Expert opinion estimation of fireline production rates. Forest Science, 35:870-877.

Fried, J.S. and J.K. Gilless. 1988. Stochastic representation of fire occurrence in a wildland fire protection planning model for California. Forest Science 34(4):948-955.

Fried, J.S. and J.K. Gilless. 1988. Modification of an initial attack simulation model to include stochastic components. pp. 235-246 in Proceedings of the 1988 Symposium on Systems Analysis in Forest Resources, Asilomar Conference Center, Pacific Grove, California, March 29 - April 1, 1988. USDA Forest Service General Technical Report RM-161.

Fried, J.S. and J.K. Gilless. 1988. The California fire economics simulator initial attack module (CFES-IAM): MS-DOS Version 1.11 User's Guide. Bulletin 1925. Division of Agriculture and Natural Resources, University of California, Berkeley, California. 84 p.

Fried, J.S., J.K. Gilless and R.E. Martin. 1987. CFES--The California Fire Economics Simulator: A computerized system for wildland fire protection planning. pp 212-217 in Proceedings, Symposium on Wildland Fire 2000, 1987 April 27-30; South Lake Tahoe, CA; USDA Forest Service General Technical Report PSW-101.

For more information, please contact:

Jim Spero
Fire Economist
CDF Fire and Resource Assessment Program (FRAP)
PO Box 944246
Sacramento, CA 94244-2460
916.324.7185
james.spero@fire.ca.gov