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Using Solid Terrain Models to fight Forest Fires

June 17, 2002
By Will Spyrison, Battalion Chief, U.S. Forest Service
South Division, Los Padres National Forest 

We began using solid terrain models to help fight forest fires back in 1999.  Lightening started the Kirk South Fire in the Los Padres National Forest, Monterey County, CA on September 8, 1999.  By September 28, the fire was still uncontained and had spread over 20,000 acres.  We had formulated tactical plans for this stubborn fire and then displayed them on maps.  These were then used to explain the plans in briefing sessions.  But our suppression tactics were not working well, and the work accomplished one day was undone the next when the fire burned over the firelines.  The fire team agreed that we needed to find a way to more precisely identify where and when control of this monster fire could be attained, and to communicate this information better.   

We contacted a couple of guys, Lawrence Faulkner and Mark Fisher, who had developed a technology to produce precise solid terrain models, very quickly, using digital satellite data and computer-controlled cutting machines.  We asked them to produce a model of the general fire area for our fire-team situation unit to use.  They immediately began the model, and we had it in a couple of days. 

Once we received the model, we took it to the Situation Unit and the Display Processor drew the fire perimeter on it and kept the perimeter current as the fire progressed.  The Display Processor also plotted the helispots and proposed fireline staging areas on the model.  The operations section chief and fire behavior officer studied the fire as it burned over the terrain, identified the location of thresholds of control, and indicated those areas on the model.  The places where the fire gained the upper hand and grew beyond thresholds of control were also identified and marked on the model.  The team members then studied the model and used what they learned to communicate information to our firefighters for safe efficient Strategy and Tactics.   

The model made a big difference, both in tactical planning and in communicating plans to all concerned with controlling the fire.  In fact, we had another model made that covers a larger area than the actual Kirk fire to help with long-range projections of fire runs.    Since then, we have obtained several models during other fires.  Two of these are models of the Ranch fire (which occurred in December 1999 in the Los Padres National Forest, Ventura County) and the Foothill fire (that began in December 2000 in the Hopper Mountain National Refuge, Ventura County).  Both models were used to plan strategies and tactics during the fires. 

Recently, we used these three models to teach the Campbell Prediction System at the Wyoming State Fire Academy in Riverton, Wyoming.  The purpose was to teach fire personnel how to do fire signature predictions regarding when and where a fire will change.  These models were also used to teach the Redding Interregional Hotshot training crew, at the north Zone Training Center, in Region 5 of the U.S. Forest Service.  Region 5 encompasses all national forests in California.  The crew’s members come from all over the United States to train together and gain valuable firefighting skills.

The models are extremely useful to us and to the local fire departments that also need to fight wildland fires.  For example, the Ventura County Fire Department often uses our models for presuppression and prescribed fire burns.  Everyone who has worked with our solid terrain models has made many positive comments about them. 

Our models also include the Pony Peak (Klamath National Forest), South Canyon (Glenwood Springs, Colorado) and Calabasas (Los Angeles County, CA) areas.  The South Canyon model is a fire fatality site, and the Calabasas model is an area where eight firefighters were burned over, with one being critically burned.   In August 2000, Faulkner and Fisher formed a company to sell their STM Solid Terrain Models.  The company is Solid Terrain Modeling (STM) of Fillmore, CA.  Information is available at http://www.stm-usa.com/.)

  Will Spyrison with the Kirk Fire STM.

Storm King Mountain in South Canyon, Glenwood Springs, Colorado.  This 12” X 12” model was done for Doug Campbell of Wildland Fire Specialists. It us used in training students about situational awareness.