N RANCHING
atural Resources
TxWRAP a tool for fi re risk prediction TFS has two main divisions. The
Forest Resource Protection Division handles emergency response, wild- fi res, prevention and mitigation. The Forest Management Division
is in charge of resource develop- ment, dispersing technical assis- tance to landowners, communities, cities and organizations for manag- ing insects, disease, timber, wildlife or other challenges. TFS also conducts forest inven-
tory analysis in cooperation with the USDA Forest Service, which Boggus describes as a kind of “tree census” across Texas. “That’s how we know we have 63 million acres of woodlands and forestlands in Texas,” he says. In 2012, the Forest Resource Protection Division
released TxWRAP, the Texas Wildfi re Risk Assess- ment Portal (www.texaswildfi
rerisk.com). This web resource allows landowners and public and private agencies to assess the strength of the wildfi re threat in their area at a glance. “It looks at the fuels, the historical weather and where people live, and we go in there and determine
TxWRAP is an online tool that helps determine the potential risk of wildfi re to people across the state.
the potential risk of wildfi re to people across the state,” says Tom Spencer, Predictive Services department head. TxWRAP was developed by a private company with
expertise in risk assessment, and they are now work- ing with the agency on its fi rst update. TFS hopes to revise it every 5 to 7 years, “not so much because of the vegetation changing, but because where people live in Texas changes fairly regularly; people move out into the wild land, rural areas of the state,” Spencer says. “We want to make sure that we capture that footprint of risk to where those people are moving.” Users can determine their level of concern at a
glance. The map is color-coded, with dark red for the highest risk, and blues and greens for lesser threats. TFS staff realized that the lack of easily accessible
information was making it diffi cult for local govern- ment offi cials to develop the hazard mitigation plans
46 The Cattleman February 2016
required by FEMA. TxWRAP provides data that the offi cials can incorporate into a planning document, covering whatever geographic area they choose. “The application will clip all of the data layers within
an area of interest, develop summary statistics for that area and create a document, kind of a pre-prepared template that shows them the graphs and the numbers of the risk, population and more, within that area,” Spencer says. At the same time, individual landowners can assess
the potential for wildfi re to strike their own homes. The portal includes a tool called “What’s Your Risk?” found at www.texaswildfi
rerisk.com/map. Spencer says, “You can just click on the map, and
it will go out about a 2-mile radius around the point that you click and come back with the average risk to that point. Depending on what that risk is, it will also provide some suggestions for how to go about mitigat- ing the risk to that particular point on the map.” While the portal assists communities and landown-
ers with pre-fi re planning, other products offered by Predictive Services provide a current assessment of “fi re danger” or “fi re potential” across the state. This is where the remote weather stations come in. They relay data that shows whether forest fuels and vegetation are drying and becoming more susceptible to burning, or moist and less susceptible. TFS also uses and offers access to the Keetch-Byram
Drought Index (KDBI),
twc.tamu.edu/kbdi, a model de- veloped by U.S. Forest Service scientists specifi cally to predict the likelihood of wildfi re based on soil moisture
thecattlemanmagazine.com
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