Integrating Pre-Season Planning with Event Response: The PODS—RMA Framework ^†

Abstract

Over the last 5 years, researchers at the US Forest Service’s Rocky Mountain Research Station have worked with land managers to develop collaborative pre-season wildfire response and fuel management plans using the Potential Operational Delineations (PODs) process. Concurrently, team members have worked with wildfire management personnel and incident management participants to deliver new decision-support tools that aim to improve the effectiveness of incident response through the Risk Management Assistance program (RMA). These two efforts share a common set of background data that identify values at risk, locations where suppression actions are most likely to be effective, and areas where responders can safely and efficiently work. I will introduce the basic structure of PODs and RMA, discuss how these programs have been implemented, and finally discuss how they provide a common language and framework for considering fire management throughout the planning, mitigation, and response functions.