The Eastern Innovation Landscape Network

The Eastern Innovation Landscape Network (EILN), conceived in March 2023, is an interagency collaborative created to evaluate and refine emerging wildland fire tools and technology. It includes representatives from the USDA Forest Service, the Department of Defense, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, and other agencies and organizations. 

EILN has evolved quickly. Today it is a fully functioning network of fire scientists and practitioners. EILN is already a viable pathway for managers and researchers to co-create the technology needed to manage wildfire and make prescribed fires safer.

Prescribed fire is a key tool for reducing hazardous fuels. In many areas, prescribed fire is an important tool for restoring and managing ecosystems.

Prescribed fire practitioners use various tools to monitor fuels and model fire spread and behavior. However, the current suite of tools were designed for wildfire suppression decision support and are not sufficient for their planning needs. Prescribed fire managers require an expanded toolkit with fire behavior models that account for fire’s interactions with the atmosphere and the complex ignition patterns typical of prescribed fire.

This has spurred innovations in the development of next-generation fire behavior models, tools, and datasets.

Accelerating the development and adoption of such tools emerged as a priority during a Department of Defense workshop in March 2023 – where the EILN was born. In this workshop, participants decided to focus on:

• Aerial and terrestrial LIDAR, paired with 3D fuels datasets such as FastFuels. This technique, known as terrestrial laser scanning (TLS), is proving very useful. TLS technology presents new possibilities for making monitoring more efficient, accurate, and affordable with the push of a button. TLS has matured and is already in operational use, so it is ripe for technology transfer. The technology allows managers to explore 3D fire effects monitoring techniques and how vegetative structure affects fire behavior.
• Fire behavior models QUIC-Fire, BurnPro3D, and the Wildland-Urban Interface Fire Dynamics Simulator. These next generation models can account for fire-atmospheric feedbacks, the effects of vegetation structure on wind fields, and the complex ignition patterns typical of prescribed fires. 

By summer of 2023, the EILN team identified nine landscapes – termed innovation nodes – to serve as demonstration sites.

All the innovation nodes are currently on lands managed by federal agencies, but the EILN is exploring future expansion into state and private lands. The initial nine nodes are:

• St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge (NWR), Piedmont NWR, and Merritt Island NWR, managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service.
• Ft. Stewart, Ft. Liberty, and Joint Base McGuire-Dix-Lakehurst, managed by the Department of Defense.
• Chattahoochee-Oconee National Forest (NF), Francis Marion and Sumter NFs, and the Savannah River Site, managed by the USDA Forest Service.

EILN has convened fire scientists and practitioners for workshops and focused technology trainings. EILN also developed and launched a QUIC-Fire roadshow which involved workshops at each innovation node.

These workshops provided opportunities for direct fire science coproduction.

Coproduction is the process of producing useful science via collaboration between scientists and end users (fire practitioners). Coproduction occurs throughout the lifecycle of a research project or development of a technology.

At the workshops, fire practitioners critiqued the models and provided feedback on their usability and their fidelity to real world experience on the fireline. Practitioners shared feedback in interviews and questionnaires and received training on how to use QUIC-Fire and BurnPro3D.

Developers used their feedback to create two improved versions of the QUIC-Fire user interface and updates for BurnPro3D.

EILN also helped provide terrestrial LiDAR trainings at St. Marks National Wildlife Refuge, Eglin Air Force Base, and the  Athens Prescribed Fire Science Laboratory of the USDA Forest Service Southern Research Station for over 50 fire managers. As a result of these trainings, four innovation nodes started new terrestrial LiDAR fire effects monitoring programs. 

In addition to evaluating and refining emerging technology, the intent of EILN – and what makes the concept revolutionary – is that it leverages existing partnerships and deliberately facilitates and accelerates innovation through more intentional coproduction of wildland fire research.

Fire science coproduction has traditionally occurred among practitioners and researchers who formed relationships at a local scale to address specific management questions. While co-production can occur at any scale or forum, the innovation nodes are intended to promote engagement between research and fire managers and to increase the pace and scale of intentional coproduction.

From the beginning, EILN members have recognized the need to confront the nation’s wildfire crisis by providing an expanded toolkit for planning and implementing prescribed fires, suppressing wildfires, and managing fire risk.

The EILN is working to generate new, efficient solutions that draw on the collective assets and capacities of its members and to change the paradigm for how practitioners and researchers collaborate around fire science innovation.