Northern Rockies Fire Restrictions Web Application

Project details
Summer in the Northern Rockies means camping, fishing, hiking, and other activities on public lands, but it also means an increased risk of wildfire, which can lead to restrictions and closures on those lands. Through a new web site, www.firerestrictions.org, the public can easily check on the restrictions and closures that are in place during the 2009 wildland fire season in Montana, Idaho, North Dakota and northwestern South Dakota.

On the user-friendly, Google map-based web site, the public can search for their area of interest and see the most current information on fire restrictions and closures. Restrictions cover activities such as building campfires, smoking, operating an internal combustion engine, welding, using explosives and operating vehicles off-road or off-trail. Wildland fire restrictions are implemented in two stages, stage I and stage II, in Montana, Idaho and Northwest South Dakota. North Dakota refers to restrictions as "very high" and "extreme." Weather, moisture in the vegetation, number of human-caused and natural fire starts, firefighting resource availability and other factors are considered to determine if wildland fire restrictions are needed. Wildland fire restrictions are implemented for a specific geographical area and coordinated by federal, state and county agencies in that area. The website identifies each geographical area by map and written text to assist the public. 

Project development
The development of this web site is a cooperative effort between the Northern Rockies Coordination Group and the National Center for Landscape Fire Analysis (NCLFA) at the University of Montana. In 2007, a subcommittee of the Northern Rockies Coordinating Group (NRCG) asked the NCLFA to lead the Northern Rockies Fire Restrictions Web Application project. The NCLFA developed the backend database for information officers to enter restrictions information and the frontend web site where the public can search for restrictions details in their area. The initiation of this project prompted the creation of a national fire restrictions clearinghouse web site that houses links to eleven geographic area’s regional restrictions information; the Northern Rockies site is the only with a web-enabled database and interactive map. The public can search for restrictions information using a map, instead of having to search by jurisdiction.

www.firerestrictions.org

Principal Investigator: Lee Macholz
Project Staff: Craig Comstock, Valentijn Hoff, LiMei Piao