Space-Age Technology To Help Snuff Idaho Wildfire Threat An International Group Of Scientists Will Be Convening In Boise This Week

First Hollywood, then the Pentagon and now Smokey Bear.

Star Wars is coming to a fire near you.

But not via George Lucas. Instead, it’s the convergence of spy satellites, laser infrared Doppler radar and computer models. It should give land managers a quicker and more definitive way to figure out what’s at greatest risk for wildfire and how to deal with it, said Leon Neuenschwander, a University of Idaho fire ecologist.

About 400 scientists from 40 countries will gather in Boise this week to try to smooth out the glitches, figure out how to link the technology and start dealing with fire using more information and less politics. The conference is hosted by the National Interagency Fire Center and the U.S. Geological Survey, with the help of scientists such as Neuenschwander.

There’s no time like the present to bring technology to the rangeland and forests, Neuenschwander said. The world will add about 200 new satellite technologies between now and 2001. Fire scientists and firefighters figure it’s prime time to tap into those cyber tools, Neuenschwander said.

Laser infrared Doppler radar, for example, should make it possible to measure the height of trees and the density of the forest.

“We can’t really estimate how dangerous a crown fire will be if we don’t know the structure of the forest,” he said.

But just knowing the trees are out there isn’t enough. Land managers and fire sleuths also need to be able to bring all of the technology together and feed the resulting data into a computer to figure out what that means to fire risk.

“It’s important to put all of the technology in one box and not have it spread out over everything,” Neuenschwander said.

Figuring out firefighting is becoming more and more pressing. Decades of homage to Smokey Bear have prompted such effective fire prevention that the fuel buildup in forests is phenomenal.

Logging has eliminated many of the fire-resistant trees and fire suppression has allowed less fire-resistant trees, like Douglas fir, to take over. Such trees also are more susceptible to insects and diseases - a problem widespread on the Idaho Panhandle National Forests.

The creep of urban America into the woods - 5-acre lots, a horse and a home with a shake roof - also make the wildfire issue more pressing.

Public land managers also want better ways to predict fire behavior, given tragedies such as the Storm King fire in Colorado in 1994 that killed 14 firefighters, conference sponsors say.

The fire conference, June 15-17, should bring Smokey into the 21st century.

“We’re going to be able to provide policy makers the basis to make their decisions,” Neuenschwander said. “And that information will be in an unbiased form.”