Southern Research Station Headquarters - Asheville, NC
Main Logo of Southern Research Station, Stating: Southern Research Station - Asheville, NC, with a saying of 'Science you can use!'
[Images] Five photos of different landscape

Compass December 2006
Download Issue 7 PDF

Compass is a quarterly publication of the USDA Forest Service's Southern Research Station (SRS). As part of the Nation's largest forestry research organization -- USDA Forest Service Research and Development -- SRS serves 13 Southern States and beyond. The Station's 130 scienists work in more than 20 units located across the region at Federal laboratories, universites, and experimental forests.



Small logo of the USDASmall logo of the Forest Service Shield


Issue 7

Time to Burn: Getting a Step Ahead of Wildland Arsonists

by Zoë Hoyle

Photo:A match buringEvery year, arsonists set over 1.5 million fires in the United States, resulting in over $3 billion in damages. Arson is a leading cause of wildfire in several heavily populated States—Florida, for one. Often set near homes and roads, intentionally set fires cause a disproportionate amount of the damage attributed to wildfire in general.

Research forester Jeff Prestemon from the SRS Economics of Forest Protection and Management unit in Research Triangle Park, NC, and economist David Butry, formerly with the SRS unit and now with the National Institute of Standards and Technology in Gaithersburg, MD, have developed a model to help law enforcement agencies better predict where and when fires might be set in wildland areas—and design strategies to reduce the risk of arson. (...continued...)






Related Stories