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Table 7 Potential pitfalls and failure modes for use of PODs for assessment, planning, and decision support

From: Potential operational delineations: new horizons for proactive, risk-informed strategic land and fire management

Themes

Description

Inclusion and cross-boundary collaboration

Failure to invite and recruit all relevant stakeholders (e.g., resource areas beyond fire and fuels, other land management agencies, community members), failure to work across ownership or administrative boundaries to draw operationally relevant PODs, failure to capture all salient values and concerns

Facilitation

Failure of facilitator to be viewed as trusted or neutral party, failure to effectively navigate conflict and ensure all voices are heard

Expertise

Failure to capture all relevant local fire management expertise, due to lack of experts (e.g., new fire staff from other locations), or exclusion of locally relevant experts such as those with traditional ecological knowledge

Maintenance and updates

Failure to devote sufficient time or resources to ensure PODs and related products are accurate and reflect current conditions

Communication and coordination

Failure to initiate dialog and share information with relevant partners, cooperators, first responders, incident management teams, etc., in a timely manner

Incomplete or rigid analysis

Failure to devote sufficient time or resources to develop and deliver relevant scientific information and modeling, failure to incorporate new ideas or innovations into PODs processes and products

Narrow focus

Failure to capitalize on opportunities for PODs beyond incident response, including fuels management and community protection planning

Changing environment

Failure to appropriately consider changed conditions and overreliance on past operational experience and empirical models that are no longer representative, may overstate ability to control wildfire, and result in lack of confidence in planning process.