A Workshop Assessing Wildfire Risk and Exploring Mitigation Strategies for Chernobyl Affected Landscapes
A Workshop Assessing Wildfire Risk and Exploring Mitigation Strategies
for Chernobyl Affected Landscapes
In a framework of the technical assistance project of the US Forest Service International Programs oin Ukraine workshop entitled “Assessing Wildfire Risk and Exploring Mitigation Strategies for Chornobyl Affected Landscapes” was organized during 28-29 June 2017 in Kyiv, Ukraine. The broad goal of the science workshop is to advance ongoing work to develop a comprehensive wildfire management plan for the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone that considers socio-ecological risk factors and incorporate state of the science wildfire risk modeling. A comprehensive wildfire management plan considers multifaceted risk abatement approaches including ignition prevention, fuels management, accelerating restoration to nonflammable vegetation, and effective wildfire response. Similar approaches are being used in the United States as part of the National Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy and we propose to leverage this pre-existing work for developing a wildfire risk management strategy in the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone. Key baseline components for this work includes a comprehensive risk assessment, a social network analysis of agencies responsible for managing wildfire risk in the zone and findings from meeting of the Ukrainian National Coordination Task Force. The following agenda is designed for the purpose of advancing ongoing research that was initiated as part of previous visits:
1. Status Report on Chornobyl (CEZ) fire model and demonstration
2. Science and modeling gaps to complete research paper
3. Social network analysis of CEZ
4. Discussion of cohesive strategy paper (in development) that combines both the wildfire risk assessment and the social network analysis
Oleksandr Soshenskyi,
Employee of Regional Eastern European Fire Monitoring Center
