The rapid advancement of technology to measure high resolution 3D landscape features is poised to revolutionize fire and resource management

This U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service cooperative agreement (CFDA 15.674 National Fire Plan-Wildland Urban Interface Community Fire Assistance) provides $676,991 in funding to explore two applications of high-density LiDAR technology:

1. Applying LiDAR vegetation data as inputs to the QUICFIRE fire behavior model to evaluate fuel treatment prescriptions and monitor model performance at management scales across priority landscapes in the U.S., including Alaska.

2. Developing a LiDAR feature detection workflow to identify archaeological sites on the same priority landscapes, validating results through existing cultural resource databases and targeted surface surveys. This workflow will be further tested and augmented for national implementation.

The award also supports training for the BIA National Innovation Training Campus to equip BIA and tribal partners in using the new LiDAR tools and next-generation fire models. The project period runs from April 1, 2024 to March 31, 2026 and is led by Nmc, Inc. (New Mexico Consortium), a non-profit research organization.

This modification explores two applications of high density lidar to advance next generation fire behavior modeling and cultural resource site detection and provides support for the BIA national innovation training campus. Light detection and ranging (lidar) is useful for developing high resolution inputs to coupled fire atmospheric modeling to plan prescribed fires and evaluate wildfire risk. This modification will apply vegetation measured through lidar as inputs to a new fire behavior model called quicfire on USFWS priority landscapes across the US including alaska. The objective of this project will be to evaluate prescriptions used to treat fuels for desired outcomes. The use of lidar before and after fire will provide an ideal monitoring of model performance at management scales. Secondly this modification with USFWS will develop a lidar feature detection workflow for archaeological sites on the same priority landscapes. Using existing cultural resource databases and datasets and new targeted archeological surface surveys we will validate detection results and provide additional assistance in integrating this work into existing cultural resource management planning procedures for the USFWS. Following a successful pilot project lidar feature detection workflows will be augmented and tested nationally (with other federal partners) in locales with varying topographic conditions and multiple cultural resource site types. This work will be developed under a larger cultural resource management toolkit for federal archaeologists. Additional components of this toolkit may also include using lidar to develop models and workflows for assessing vulnerability of cultural resources to the effects of wildfire and suppression. Finally this modification will provide support for the BIA national innovation training campus to train BIA and tribal partners in the use of the lidar tools and next generation fire models.