Hi Gin,
Thank you for reaching out. I agree that some of the Burned Area Rehab tools and planning would be a good fit for IFTDSS. Right now in IFTDSS we have the Monitoring Trends and Burn Severity (MTBS) Data available but that is not normally updated in real time. We do not have any debris flow - post-burn modeling tools on the list for IFTDSS at this time, but this is a very good idea. We had some meetings early on with the BAER/BAR committees when IFTDSS was first being designed, those groups decided to work with the USGS and this tool was developed: Home - Land Treatment Exploration Tool (usgs.gov) . I am not sure how far along they are in adding additional functionality, but they may be a good group to connect with.
We have a very small development team and are focusing specifically on fuels planning functionality currently. This forum is the perfect place to bring these ideas to us however and we will keep you in mind as we interact with other programs and applications. It's in the future but the hope is that the WFDSS and IFTDSS will be much more closely connected - the planning part (IFTDSS) feeding the wildfire management part (WFDSS)... a third part would be the Post-Fire Rehab work... all of these pieces should be accessible in one place - we definitely agree with that concept.
Please stay tuned to IFTDSS via these forums and newsletters - we always take suggestions into consideration and have a list of great ideas we have gotten from our users. As things evolve we will keep your name/contact info in mind as we always want direct input from the folks that are doing this work.
-Kim
IFTDSS Team
Gin Price
I had the opportunity to give the new Debris Flow model developers feedback when the rains hit after Hermit's Peak Fire (the model predicts flows quite well).
Since then I tend to look at opportunities to use good firing timing and technique on large wildfires, to reduce likelihood of undesirable near-future outcomes (i.e. high severity fire and debris flows). With wildfires on track to produce far more "treated acres" than rx fires, for the foreseeable future, it would be great to have more tools for achieving good fire effects during wildfire management.
For instance, I'd like to use IFTDSS/WFDSS to model potential for high-severity fire and debris flows over a 20,000-acre active Type 1 fire as an LTAN or FBAN. This would help Ops identify key drainages & weather windows, and help focus Complex IMTs on longer-term community and forest wellbeing, as well as short-term fire control objectives.
Any plans for adding these modeling tools to IFTDSS?