Decision Modeling for Analyzing Fire Action Outcomes

A methodology for incident decomposition and reconstruction is developed based on the concept of an “event-frame model.” The event-frame model characterizes a fire incident in terms of (a) environmental events that pertain to the fire and the fire context (e.g., fire behavior, weather, fuels) and (b) management events that represent responses to the fire environment. The model defines a sequential set of eventframes according to temporal and contextual factors (e.g., management processes) that yield a visual representation of an incident decomposition. The set of eventframes decomposes an incident into discrete units of analysis that can incorporate other models or processes (e.g., decision analysis) to describe decision elements of a fire incident. Based on the reconstructions reported here, we find that decision processes differ according to the incident and its events.