Northern Region Wildfire Risk Assessment: methods and results
The purpose of the USFS Northern Region Wildfire Risk Assessment (NoRRA) is to provide foundational information about wildfire hazard and risk to highly valued resources and assets across the Region. Such information supports regional fuel management planning decisions as well as revisions to land and resource management plans. A wildfire risk assessment is a quantitative analysis of the assets and resources across a specific landscape and how they are potentially impacted by wildfire. The NoRRA analysis considers several different components, each resolved spatially across the Region, including:
- likelihood of a fire burning,
- the intensity of a fire if one should occur,
- the exposure of assets and resources based on their locations, and
- the susceptibility of those assets and resources to wildfire
Assets are man-made features, such as commercial structures, critical facilities, housing, etc., that have a specific importance or value. Resources are natural features, such as wildlife habitat, federally threatened and endangered species (wildlife and vegetation), etc. These also have a specific importance or value. Generally, the term “values at risk” has previously been used to describe both assets and resources. For NoRRA, the term Highly Valued Resources and Assets (HVRA) is used to describe what has previously been labeled values at risk. There are two reasons for this change in terminology. First, resources and assets are not themselves “values” in any way that term is conventionally defined—they have value (importance). Second, while resources and assets may be exposed to wildfire, they are not necessarily “at risk”—that is the purpose of the assessment.
