WFDSS Help Desk
fire_help@fs.fed.us
+1 800-253-5559

About WFDSS

This page contains the following topics:

• WFDSS Background
• WFDSS Timeline
• WFDSS User Roles

WFDSS Background

Over the past 30 years, fires have dramatically increased in size and complexity, often stretching the capacity of the management systems in place. The Wildland Fire Decision Support System (WFDSS) project evolved from the need to streamline and improve these decision-making processes, as well as take advantage of improvements in technology, fire modeling, and geospatial analysis.

The former system, Wildland Fire Situation Analysis (WFSA) has been around for 30 years with little change, has become cumbersome to use, and is not scalable or flexible enough for today's fire management needs.

In June 2005, the National Fire and Aviation Executive Board chartered WFDSS to replace WFSA in 2009 with a system that has the following capabilities:

• Develops a scalable decision support system for agency administrators
• Uses appropriate fire behavior modeling, economic principles, and information technology
• Supports effective wildland fire decisions consistent with Resource and Fire Management Plans

WFDSS will also replace the Wildland Fire Implementation Plan (WFIP) and Long-Term Incident Planning (LTIP) processes.

WFDSS has the following advantages over the existing systems:

• Enables spatial data layering
• Reduces text, increases use of map displays
• Reduces input requirements
• Begins process at time of discovery
• Removes alternative comparison and decision tree development
• Pre-loads information from the following sources to allow pre-planning:
  • Land Management Plans/Fire Management Plans
  • Other sources
  • Preplanned decision criteria
  • Local spatial data files
• Provides scalability for incident complexity (WFDSS contains three Response Levels: RL1, RL2, RL3, which equate to changing complexity)
• Can be ended at any level, can progress through levels, or jump to appropriate level
• Can be used for single or multiple fire situations.

WFDSS Timeline

Date	Event
June 2005	National Fire and Aviation Executive Board charters WFDSS Phase I
April 2006	Initial planning and requirements analysis completed
October 2006	Forest Services contracts with IBM to develop WFDSS system
June 2007	FSPro, RAVAR, and SCI WFDSS components available for testing on wildland fires
December 2007	FEC approves continued development of WFDSS for all five federal fire agencies
Winter/Spring 2008	Additional functionality and components added to system
June 2008	Second WFDSS prototype during fire season to test as replacement for WFSA, WFIP and LTIP
February-March 2009	Training Webinars begin
March 6, 2009	USFS Regional Leads designated
April 1, 2009	USFS Agency administrators authorized to use WFDSS for decision reporting
June 1, 2009	USFS Regions 3, 8, 9 complete transition to WFDSS for decision analysis and reporting
July 1, 2009	USFS Regions 1, 2, 4, 5, and 6 complete transition to WFDSS for decision analysis and reporting
September 1, 2009	All USFS agency field units entering all unplanned wildland fires into WFDSS
Fall 2009 and beyond	Additional enhancements and maintenance will occur

WFDSS User Roles

The following sections explain what each user type is allowed to do in WFDSS. To request a change to your user role globally, contact the administrator. To change your user role for a specific incident, contact the author of the incident, or the geographic area editor.

Note: There are also separate user functions associated with the decision-making process. Those functions are incident-specific and not dependent on the system-level roles described here (for example, owner and approver are incident-specific).

Viewer

All users who have access to WFDSS have at least the following privileges:

• View incident information for all WFDSS incidents and groups.
• View completed analyses and reports.
• Cannot edit.

Dispatcher

• Enter information for a new WFDSS incident within their geographic area.
• Edit incident information for incidents they create, until ownership is assigned, or unless a decision is being reviewed.
• Upload shape files.
• Validate or invalidate the default course of action, if no one has been assigned as an owner.
• Delete an incident if it was created within the past 24 hours and no one is assigned as owner.

Author

• Enter information for a new WFDSS incident.
• Edit incident information for incidents they create.
• Grant privileges to other users for incidents they have authored.
• Run simple (unsupervised) fire behavior analyses.
• Request an analyst be assigned for fire behavior modeling.
• Run automated Basic Fire Behavior and Short-term Fire Behavior.

Geographic Area Editor

• Edit WFDSS incidents within their geographic area (GA).
• Assign or transfer ownership of an incident within their GA. 
• Assign and prioritize analysis requests within their GA.
• Authorize new Viewer, Author, Dispatcher, and Fire Behavior Specialist roles in their GA.
• Does not have privileges specific to Fire Behavior Analysts, RAVAR Analysts, or Administrators.

National Editor

• Has maximum authority relative to WFDSS incident management.
• Has all the capabilities of a Geographic Area Editor, but at a national level.
• Delete incidents.
• Does not have privileges specific to Fire Model Analysts, RAVAR Analysts, or Administrators.

Fire Behavior Specialist

Formerly the FSPro Analyst role, but the name change reflects additional fire behavior tools available in WFDSS. Users requesting this role should have previous fire behavior modeling experience, including evaluating and modifying landscape files, historic climate, and forecasted weather.

• Conduct "assisted" fire behavior analyses and modify inputs as needed.
• Accept (or reject) the results of the fire behavior analyses.
• Grant privileges to other analysts for analyses they have created.
• Interpret fire behavior analyses for other users.
• Run or copy Basic Fire Behavior (BFB), Short-Term Fire Behavior, and FSPro analyses on any incident.

RAVAR Specialist

Since the RAVAR analysis tool is not yet completely automated, some manual effort is required to complete a RAVAR analysis. This manual effort is provided by the RAVAR Analysts at the Forestry Science Lab in Missoula, Montana, so users should not request this role.

• Accept or reject a RAVAR analysis request.
• Post RAVAR summary documentation.

Super Analyst

• Has maximum analysis authority, provides coaching and training to other analysts.
• Run, edit, and accept all types of analyses.
• Delete analyses.

Data Manager

• Enter and maintain strategic objectives and fire management unit associations for individual agency units.

Help Desk

Located at the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) in Boise, Idaho.

• Assist other WFDSS users with technical questions associated with the system.
• Access user profiles.
• Reset passwords.
• View "work in progress" from within the application.

Administrator

Comprised of the WFDSS core team and IBM developers.

• Authorize new users.
• Disable users.
• Assign and modify user roles.
• Reset passwords.
• Edit user profiles.
• Send WFDSS e-mails and broadcast WFDSS messages.