FireScape Monterey Uses Sonoma Technology's Fire Modeling to Reduce Risk from Wildfires

At least one large fire has burned in California’s Ventana Wilderness each decade over the past 40 years, with several fires burning more than 100,000 acres. In light of a three-year drought, and the increasing risk of another large landscape fire, several government and non-government organizations formed FireScape Monterey to re-establish, prepare, and maintain a set of fuel breaks around the Ventana Wilderness. These fuel breaks are designed to reduce the wildfire risk and hazard to local wildland-urban interface communities by serving as ready-to-go anchor points for fire suppression.
As part of this work, Sonoma Technology’s fire behavior modelers used fire behavior and fire effects models to determine whether a set of proposed fuel breaks would intercept future wildfires and interrupt fire movement across this fire-prone landscape.
Our work demonstrated
The usefulness of the fire behavior and fire effects modeling tools in the Interagency Fuels Treatment Decision Support System (IFTDSS) for fuels treatment analysis and planning.
That proposed fuel breaks were strategically located and would likely intercept future wildfires.
That the fuel breaks would support fire suppression activities to reduce fire movement out of the wilderness area.