3D.4
Paying for fuel treatments: Fire Science Synthesis - Economic and Utilization Team
R. James Barbour, USDA Forest Service, Portland, OR; and R. Fight
The intent of this project is to use existing scientific information on the finances of fuel treatments and utilization of removed biomass to develop a set of techniques suitable for use by natural resource managers who design and implement hazardous fuels treatments for the dry conifer forests of the interior western United States. The effort targets operational-level projects and supports National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) requirements relevant to planning and execution of fuel treatments. We summarized the scientific literature and unpublished information on costs and revenues associated with hazardous fuels treatments then used this information to develop tools, methods, and procedures needed to estimate treatment costs and revenues for hazardous fuels treatments. Methods for evaluating the economic impacts of treatments on local economies were also developed. Outputs from the work are a spreadsheet based analysis tool called My Fuel Treatment Planner and a series of short (1-4 page) “Fact Sheets.” The Fact Sheets provide fuels specialists and other managers with enough technical detail to understand a concept or conduct an analysis without the extraneous information that might be included in a research paper or scientific report. The combination of the Fact Sheets and My Fuel Treatment Planner is intended to give specialists the information they need to design an analysis in a subject area where they might not have technical skills and to provide them with an easy to use tool with which to conduct that analysis. .
Session 3D, Fuels Planning: Science Synthesis and Integration (Track IV)
Thursday, 20 November 2003, 8:00 AM-11:00 AM
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