Development of the Interagency Fuels Treatment Decision Support System

The JFSP, working with the Fuels Management Committee (FMC) of the National Wildfire Coordinating Group, identified the need to develop a software integration framework to help organize and manage the multitude of existing data and software applications used for vegetation management and fuels treatment planning. Sonoma Technology worked collaboratively with the JFSP, the FMC, end-users, and several other stakeholder groups to design and implement the Interagency Fuels Treatment Decision Support System (IFTDSS). The IFTDSS framework provides access to existing data and tools through a single, web-based user interface to help land and fire managers across the United States make more informed decisions.
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The IFTDSS provides numerous benefits for stakeholders:
<ul>
<li>Makes the fuels treatment planning process more efficient by providing access to a variety of data and tools and streamlining time consuming activities such as preparing vegetation data sets, formatting and reformatting data for input to software applications, and preparing documents.</li>
<li>Improves the science behind fuels treatment planning by providing a framework for scientists to more easily test and validate models.</li>
<li>Provides an extensible system in which new data and tools can be added as they are developed over time.</li>
<li>Promotes collaboration and strengthens the partnership among a variety of federal and state land management agencies (e.g., the USDA Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, Fish and Wildlife Service, etc.).</li>