By Andrew Avitt, April 18, 2023
Bringing people to the table might be a turn of phrase for collaboration but that’s exactly what collaboration can look like when it comes to planning. Potential operational delineations (PODS) combines local fire knowledge with advanced analytics to come up with cross-boundary, cross-jurisdiction response options for first responders. (Photo courtesy of Cheyanne Neuffer, Tahoe Resource Conservation District)
With warm, drier summer months next up in the queue, wildfire activity across the country and California will begin to increase. The Forest Service and partners prepare for this year-round. They keep their firefighters well equipped and well trained. They treat forested areas around communities to create defensible space — all so when a wildfire starts, they’ll be ready.
But there’s another part of the response, that happens long before a wildfire sparks. An approach that national forests and communities across the country are incorporating into their strategies — potential operational delineations, or PODs. PODs is a pre-planning software tool used to develop wildfire response options before fires start. PODs combines local fire knowledge with advanced special analytics to create cross-boundary, cross-jurisdiction response options for first responders.
Carrie Thaler, Fire Chief on the Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit, oversees the 156,335 acres of national forest lands surrounding Lake Tahoe. She draws on 28 years in wildland firefighting and four years as the forest’s Fire Chief. Her job is to coordinate fire resources with the other Lake Tahoe Fire Chiefs, to plan for and respond to wildfires as soon as they are detected.
Thaler understands the collaborative power of strategic planning tools, like potential operational delineations, that in some ways starts wildfire suppression long before firefighters arrive on scene.
Bringing people to the table might be a turn of phrase for collaboration but that’s exactly what collaboration can look like when it comes to planning, said Thaler.
“We all gather — fire chiefs, partners, stakeholders, land managers, law enforcement around a literal table with maps. We ask, ‘Do these maps reflect the current situation on the ground?’”
These discussions, coupled with science-based models, allow fire managers to develop landscape-scale wildfire response strategies. They analyze areas across the landscape and note which are most likely to slow or stop the spread of a wildfire.
The strategic software pinpoints spots like roads, rivers, ridgelines and treated areas, where forests or areas around communities have been thinned —anywhere that might give firefighters the edge in containing a fire.
“These are not areas that are certain to stop a fire. They are possible locations,” said Thaler. “Potential operational delineations allow us to look at the features on a landscape and assess where we would have a better chance of containing or controlling a fire.”
Collaborative pre-planning also offers another subtler benefit, said Thaler. “The same people in those meetings looking at those maps are often the same people responding to a wildfire. We’ve already talked through many of the scenarios and are familiar with the landscape and where we could be most effective.”
Beyond using potential operational delineations for ways to best respond to a wildfire, the Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit and fire departments in the area are using the information to reduce the risk to communities.
“We are cross referencing all of this information to prioritize where and how to implement fuels treatments, how we can work together and share resources to do fuels work across the landscape,” said Thaler. “The safety of our communities is always our number one priority when suppressing fires and that remains the same for us when selecting priority locations for fuels work.”