PNW 5C FFS Wildland-Urban Interface Risk Approaches

THIS IS A SOURCES SOUGHT NOTICE ONLY and a SOLICITATION IS NOT CURRENTLY AVAILABLE. The United States Department of Agriculture, Forest Service is issuing this sources sought synopsis as a means of conducting market research to identify parties having an interest in and the resources to support this requirement for: Background There is a significant need for an improved wildland-urban interface (WUI) database that supports the evaluation and enhancement of WUI risk assessment methods. Primarily, characterizing WUI risk relies on information from retrospective correlation studies, minimal model evaluations, and limited assessment of WUI definitions. Also, no wildfire-affected building footprint database portraying the building type (e.g., home versus shed), damage status, and other information covering significant spatiotemporal extents exists, resulting in limited information to characterize WUI risk. Furthermore, correlation studies do not typically examine defensive actions, the relationship between defensive actions and property treatments, or segment the destroyed and not destroyed buildings based on exposure conditions (e.g., proximity to burned features). These studies utilize coarse-resolution vegetation and topography data (e.g., 30 meters) and information from post-fire assessments where fire has altered pre-fire conditions, resulting in identification difficulties of consumed materials. Finally, limited studies assess the response of vegetation within the home ignition zone and further afield. 2.0 Goals This project aims to develop and deliver a database of wildfire-affected building footprints, classified by building type, attributed with structure separation distance (SSD), construction materials, and uncertainty categorized for this data. The database will cover significant spatiotemporal extents (e.g., 2010 to 2022 in the U.S.) and include unique information from the National Fire Incident Reporting Systems and other databases. High-resolution (e.g., 1 meter) pre-fire and post-fire-affected vegetation datasets will be derived at select fires. We will use this data to assess the uncertainty in correlation studies. We will focus on examining relationships between pre-fire and fire-affected vegetation, relationships between defensive actions and property treatments (e.g., defensible space), and how conclusions of correlation studies change when using new data derived through this project. Project data will support examining current WUI definitions when considering SSD and fine-scale vegetation. Additionally, we will evaluate WUI fire behavior models. These efforts will facilitate examining and enhancing current parcel and building-scale risk assessment approaches. Tasks Acquire Pre-Fire and Post-Fire Aerial Imagery: The contractor will utilize provided funds to acquire pre-fire and post-fire aerial imagery of select WUI fire locations. This imagery and other satellite and aerial imagery and pre-fire light detection and ranging (LiDAR) data will be used to extract pre-fire vegetation and building footprints as described below. Creating a Database and Assessing Uncertainty: The contractor will integrate a unique combination of data on wildfire-affected buildings to create a database to assess uncertainty in the location and type (e.g., primary versus secondary) of wildfire-affected building footprints, creating an extensive database covering the U.S. between 2010 and 2022. When possible, the contractor will attribute the buildings with SSD, information on defended buildings, and pre-fire building conditions with uncertainty. We will also utilize pre-fire and postfire remote sensing data to create and use existing high-resolution and coarse-resolution maps of vegetation and topography, creating a database to support the assessments below. This task will focus on answering the following question: Q1. What are the accuracies associated with various methods (e.g., remote sensing and ground-based) of identifying damaged and destroyed buildings, building conditions, and primary (e.g., home) and secondary (e.g., shed) building types? Assessing Uncertainty in Correlation Studies: Assessing uncertainty in correlation studies will occur at select fires. We will utilize the databases derived above and the existing databases listed in Table 1 to address the following questions. Q2. What is the relationship between pre-fire vegetation conditions and wildfire-affected vegetation within the HIZ and further afield? Q3. Are defensive actions on parcels and buildings correlated with property treatments (e.g., defensible space) present in risk assessment approaches? Q4. How do conclusions change in correlation studies between pre-fire conditions and building response to fire when using new information on defensive actions, wildfire-affected vegetation, building material, and fine-scale vegetation and topography? Q5. How can the Bradford Hill Criteria [1] for causation be modified to present a framework for determining the causation of building destruction at wildfires? Examining WUI Definitions: We will examine the components of WUI definitions using the datasets and information produced in the above tasks. This examination will incorporate unique approaches to answer the following questions. Q6. How does examining SSD across representative WUI fires over the past twenty years change our understanding of definitions of the WUI? Q7. How do coarse-scale measures of topography and vegetation compare to fine-scale measures of topography and vegetation when examining core components of current WUI definitions (e.g., distance to wildland vegetation)? Q8. How do answers to questions six and seven change current WUI definitions? Evaluating and Refining Existing Risk Frameworks: Finally, based on the integrated efforts above, and in close conjunction with the USFS technical representative, the contractor will examine existing WUI parcel and building scale risk approaches, focusing on components to enhance through the insights and data developed in the above efforts. We will address question ten below in this final aspect of the project. Q10. What methods can enhance parcel and building scale WUI risk approaches? There is no solicitation at this time. 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