Review Cohesive fire management within an uncertain environment: A review of risk handling and decision support systems Abílio Pereira Pacheco a,⇑ , João Claro a , Paulo M. Fernandes b , Richard de Neufville c , Tiago M. Oliveira d , José G. Borges e , José Coelho Rodrigues a a INESC TEC and Faculdade de Engenharia, Universidade do Porto, Campus da FEUP, Rua Dr. Roberto Frias, 378, 4200-465 Porto, Portugal b Centre for the Research and Technology of Agro-Environmental and Biological Sciences, CITAB, University of Trás-os-Montes and Alto Douro, UTAD, Quinta de Prados, 5000-801 Vila Real, Portugal c Engineering Systems Division, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Cambridge, MA 02139, USA d Forest Protection, grupo PortucelSoporcel, Edifício Mitrena, Apartado 55, 2901-861 Setúbal, Portugal e Forest Research Centre, School of Agriculture, University of Lisbon, Tapada da Ajuda, 1349-017 Lisboa, Portugal article info Article history: Received 15 October 2014 Received in revised form 18 February 2015 Accepted 21 February 2015 Keywords: Forest fire management Decision support systems Risk Economic efficiency Natural resources Implementation management abstract Wildfire management has been struggling in recent years with escalating devastation, expenditures, and complexity. Given the copious factors involved and the complexity of their interactions, uncertainty in the outcomes is a prominent feature of wildfire management strategies, at both policy and operational levels. Improvements in risk handling and in risk-based decision support tools have therefore a key role in addressing these challenges. In this paper, we review key systems created to support wildfire manage- ment decision-making at different levels and scales, and describe their evolution from an initial focus on landscape-level fire growth simulation and burn probability assessment, to the incorporation of exposure and economic loss potential (allowing the translation of ignition likelihood, fire environment – terrain, fuels, and weather – and suppression efficacy into potential fire effects), the integration with forest man- agement and planning, and more recently, to developments in the assessment of values at risk, including real-time assessment. This evolution is linked to a progressive widening of the scope of usage of these systems, from an initial more limited application to risk assessment, to the subsequent inclusion of func- tionality enabling their utilization in the context of risk management, and more recently, to their explicit casting in the broader societal context of risks and decisions, from a risk governance perspective. This joint evolution can be seen as the result of a simultaneous pull from methodological progresses in risk handling, and push from technological progress in wildfire management decision support tools, as well as more broadly in computational power. We identify the key benefits and challenges in the development and adoption of these systems, as well as future plausible research trends. Ó 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. Contents 1. Introduction ........................................................................................................... 2 2. From fire growth simulation to economic models and beyond .................................................................. 2 2.1. Fire growth simulation models ...................................................................................... 2 2.2. Fire suppression models ............................................................................................ 7 2.3. Wildfire management DSS based on economic models ................................................................... 7 2.3.1. LEOPARDS ................................................................................................ 8 2.3.2. KITRAL ................................................................................................... 8 2.3.3. SINAMI .................................................................................................. 8 2.3.4. Fire Program Analysis....................................................................................... 8 http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.foreco.2015.02.033 0378-1127/Ó 2015 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved. ⇑ Corresponding author. Tel.: +351 222094000/933004412; fax: +351 222094050. E-mail addresses: abilio.pacheco@fe.up.pt (A.P. Pacheco), jclaro@fe.up.pt (J. Claro), pfern@utad.pt (P.M. Fernandes), ardent@mit.edu (R. de Neufville), tiago. oliveira@portucelsoporcel.com (T.M. Oliveira), joseborges@isa.utl.pt (J.G. Borges), jose.c.rodrigues@inesctec.pt (J.C. Rodrigues). Forest Ecology and Management 347 (2015) 1–17 Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Forest Ecology and Management journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/foreco