Forest Fire Problems---A Progress Report

Forest and wildland fires in the United States of America destroy about 4 million acres annually, at an estimated direct cost of about $350 million. In the state of California alone, about 270,000 acres of timber, recreation, and watershed values are destroyed yearly. Under a cooperative agreement with the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service, a research group at the Operations Research Center, University of California, Berkeley, has begun a program to study the application of operations research to forest fire control systems, this paper is a progress report on that program Problem areas that have been explored to date are (1) Initial attack planning, (2) man and equipment mobilization, (3) economics of detection systems, (4) fire camp organization, and (5) fire agency communications. Although it is still too early to provide definite recommendations in these areas, certain approaches appear very promising. One of the present limitations to OR studies is a lack of fundamental knowledge about (1). The macro-physical behavior of fire, and (2) the effect of varying suppression tactics upon this behavior. Nevertheless, the problems of forest fire control provide an exciting and worthwhile area for future research.