How Are Weather and Climate Products and Decision Support Systems Used in Wildland Fire Decision-Making in the U.S. Southwest?

Abstract Wildland fire management is a challenging environment in which to utilize scientific information. Despite the robust information system that supports U.S. wildland fire management, recent studies demonstrate that some data/information products and decision support tools available to that community are not being used to their full potential. In the U.S. Southwest, the convergence of climate change, past wildland fire policy, and an expanding wildland–urban interface have increased pressure on wildland fire managers to use science-based information to improve management outcomes. This tension between the perceived need for more science in fire management and the practical challenges of using science to inform decisions led us to ask two basic questions: 1) How is information about weather and climate used in wildland fire management decision-making in the Southwest? 2) How are decision support tools used in Southwest wildland fire management? We found that relatively few sources of weather and climate information are consulted by Southwest wildland fire managers; a small percentage of those sources are used to inform the specific decisions and tasks we asked about; and decision support tools are commonly used to justify rather than inform decisions. We further found evidence that suggests that products and tools that are thoughtfully designed to fit within the specific information use environment of wildland fire management—rather than being produced in isolation from that environment—are more likely to be used and therefore have more impact than those that are produced in isolation from that environment. Significance Statement This study set out to understand how weather and climate information and decision support systems (DSSs) are perceived and used by the Southwest wildland fire management community. We found that the wildland fire community consults relatively few weather and climate products, even fewer are used to inform decisions, and that DSSs are frequently used to justify rather than inform decisions. We argue that the climate services community and other scientists who develop science-based tools and products for fire management will benefit from better understanding the information use environment in which their science may be used if they want to increase the utility of their work.