Erin J. Belval
Research Forester
240 West Prospect Road
Fort Collins, CO 80526-2098
United States
Fort Collins, CO 80526-2098
United States
Phone
970-498-2574
Current Research
Erin provides research products, decision support tools, innovative frameworks and answers to policy questions using state-of-the-art, empirically driven models and analyses. She specializes in the management of wildland fire, particularly focusing on the effectiveness and efficiency of the current management system and policies.Past Research
Erin’s research projects generally fall into at least one of the following three categories: 1) data driven statistical analyses to identify historical and current patterns, 2) direct decision support and risk management tools provided to managers in response to current management issues and 3) decision support frameworks that improve management in the future, particularly focusing on frameworks that consider the inter-agency and multi-jurisdictional land management aspects of wildfire. Her research has spanned broad spatial scales, from a single fire model of fire suppression operations to national level dispatching response for wildland fire. Examples of past and current research cover diverse topics such as efficient dispatching of interagency hotshot crews, assessing effectiveness of suppression and fuel break strategies, the interagency and hierarchical environment in which fire is managed, risk assessments for large fires, seasonality of wildland fire resources, effect of human development on bird species richness and developing metrics for resource scarcity.Why This Research Is Important
The management of wildland fire is critically important to our society and will demand innovative, collaborative solutions in the coming years as our society grapples with the effects of climate change, land use and conflicting priorities among different stakeholders. To address these issues, research in the field of wildland fire management requires the integration of knowledge from a wide variety of disciplines such as management science, operations research, ecology, economics, statistics and the social sciences.Education
- Colorado State University, Ph.D. Forestry, Forestry and Operations Research, 2014
- Colorado State University, M.E., Operations Research and Systems Analysis, 2012
- Reed College, B.A. Physics, Physics, 2008
Professional Experience
- Research Scientist / Research Associate, Colorado State University, 2014 - 2020
- Post-doctoral Fellow, Colorado State University, 2013 - 2014
Other Publications
- Dung Nguyen, Erin J. Belval, Yu Wei, Karen C. Short, David E. Calkin. 2024. Dataset of United States Incident Management Situation Reports from 2007 to 2021
- Erin J. Belval, Jude Bayham, Shayne Magstadt. 2024. Retention of highly qualified wildland firefighters in the Western United States
- Jeffrey Prestemon, Erin Belval, Jennifer Costanza, Jeffrey Morisette, Karin Riley, Shannon Kay, Karen Short, Bruno Kanieski da Silva. 2024. Climate financial risk: the federal government's exposure to financial risk due to climate change
- Yavar Pourmohamad, John T. Abatzoglou, Erin J. Belval, Erica Fleishman, Karen Short, Matthew C. Reeves, Nicholas Nauslar, Philip E. Higuera, Eric Henderson, Sawyer Ball, Amir AghaKouchak, Jeffrey P. Prestemon, Julia Olszewski, Mojtaba Sadegh. 2024. Physical, social, and biological attributes for improved understanding and prediction of wildfires: FPA FOD-Attributes dataset
- Sunniva Bloem, Alison C. Cullen, John T. Abatzoglou, Linda O. Mearns, Erin Belval. 2024. Drivers of international fire management personnel deployed to the United States
- Erin Belval, Sarah McCaffrey, Trevor Finney, David Calkin, Shane Greer. 2023. The impact of COVID-19 prevention measures on interagency hotshot crews in 2020
- Matthew P. Thompson, Erin J. Belval, Jude Bayham, David E. Calkin, Crystal S. Stonesifer, David Flores. 2023. Wildfire response: A system on the brink?
- Benjamin Gannon, Yu Wei, Erin Belval, Jesse Young, Matthew Thompson, Christopher O’Connor, David Calkin, Christopher Dunn. 2023. A quantitative analysis of fuel break effectiveness drivers in Southern California National Forests
- Yu Wei, Benjamin Gannon, Jesse Young, Erin Belval, Matthew Thompson, Christopher O’Connor, David Calkin. 2023. Estimating WUI exposure probability to a nearby wildfire
- Erin J. Belval, Matthew P. Thompson. 2023. A decision framework for evaluating the Rocky Mountain Area Wildfire Dispatching System in Colorado
- Erin J. Belval, Karen C. Short, Crystal S. Stonesifer, David E. Calkin. 2022. A historical perspective to inform strategic planning for 2020 end-of-year wildland fire response efforts
- Jeffrey Prestemon, Erin Belval, Sara Brown, Jennifer Costanza, Linda Joyce, Shannon Kay, Mark Lichtenstein, Jeffrey Morisette, Karin Riley, Karen Short. 2022. Climate risk exposure: An assessment of the Federal Government's financial risks to climate change
- Matthew P. Thompson, David L. Martell, Erin Belval. 2022. How operations research and management science can help address the wildfire crisis
- Erin Belval. 2022. Looking to the past to plan for future wildfire response
- Crystal S. Stonesifer, David E. Calkin, Matthew P. Thompson, Erin J. Belval. 2021. Is this flight necessary? The Aviation Use Summary (AUS): A framework for strategic, risk-informed aviation decision support
- Erin J. Belval, Jude Bayham, Matthew P. Thompson, Jacob Dilliott, Andrea G. Buchwald. 2021. Modeling the systemic risks of COVID-19 on the wildland firefighting workforce
- Matthew P. Thompson, Erin J. Belval. 2021. “Moneyball” for the wildland fire system
- Yu Wei, Matthew P. Thompson, Erin Belval, Benjamin Gannon, David E. Calkin, Christopher D. O’Connor. 2020. Comparing contingency fire containment strategies using simulated random scenarios
- Jude Bayham, Erin J. Belval, Matthew P. Thompson, Christopher Dunn, Crystal S. Stonesifer, David E. Calkin. 2020. Weather, risk, and resource orders on large wildland fires in the western US
- Erin J. Belval, Crystal S. Stonesifer, David E. Calkin. 2020. Fire suppression resource scarcity: Current metrics and future performance indicators
- Matthew P. Thompson, Jude Bayham, Erin Belval. 2020. Potential COVID-19 outbreak in fire camp: Modeling scenarios and interventions
- Erin J. Belval, David E. Calkin, Yu Wei, Crystal S. Stonesifer, Matthew P. Thompson, Alex Masarie. 2018. Examining dispatching practices for Interagency Hotshot Crews to reduce seasonal travel distance and manage fatigue
- Erin J. Belval, Yu Wei, David E. Calkin, Crystal S. Stonesifer, Matthew P. Thompson, John R. Tipton. 2017. Studying interregional wildland fire engine assignments for large fire suppression
- Yu Wei, Erin J. Belval, Matthew P. Thompson, Dave E. Calkin, Crystal S. Stonesifer. 2016. A simulation and optimisation procedure to model daily suppression resource transfers during a fire season in Colorado
- Yu Wei, Michael Bevers, Erin Belval, Benjamin Bird. 2015. A chance-constrained programming model to allocate wildfire initial attack resources for a fire season
- Erin J. Belval, Yu Wei, Michael Bevers. 2015. A mixed integer program to model spatial wildfire behavior and suppression placement decisions
- Yu Wei, Michael Bevers, Erin J. Belval. 2015. Designing seasonal initial attack resource deployment and dispatch rules using a two-stage stochastic programming procedure
- Yu Wei, Michael Bevers, Dung Nguyen, Erin Belval. 2014. A spatial stochastic programming model for timber and core area management under risk of fires
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This 15-year dataset of daily summaries of wildland fire activity across 10 geographical regions in the U.S. enables researchers and practitioners to study historical wildfire activity and resource use across regions and time, examine fire management perceptions, evaluate strategies for fire prioritization and fire resource allocation, and exploit other broader usage to improve wildfire management and response in the United States.Year2024Research Station -
Research on Interagency Hotshot Crews using workforce data from 2012 to 2018 found that the more additional days Hot Shots were assigned on fires during the year, the more likely they were to stay on the job.Year2024Research StationPrincipal Investigator(s): Erin J. Belval -
This research outlines a multiyear decision analysis framework between partnering agencies and local stakeholder groups working to improve wildfire dispatching systems in Colorado.Year2023Research StationPrincipal Investigator(s): Erin J. Belval, Matthew P. ThompsonState(s)Colorado -
The area burned by wildfire is projected to more than triple by the end of the century, according to a new assessment from the Forest Service Southern Research Station. Federal spending for suppression is projected to more than double. These projections should inform regional and national fire management priorities.Year2022Research StationPrincipal Investigator(s): Jeffrey P. Prestemon, Jennifer Costanza, Erin J. Belval, Sara H. Brown, Linda A. Joyce, Shannon Kay, Jeffrey "Frenchy" T. Morisette, Karin Riley, Karen C. Short -
Decision-making tools can help fire managers balance complicated risk tradeoffs to make informed decisions regarding the use of firefighting resources, such as aircraft. The Aviation Use Summary (AUS) utilizes aircraft event tracking data, existing geospatial datasets, and emerging analytics to summarize incident-scale aircraft use and guide decision makers through a strategic risk management process.Year2022Research StationPrincipal Investigator(s): Crystal S. Stonesifer, Dave E. Calkin, Matthew P. Thompson, Erin J. Belval -
During elevated fire danger, managers need the best and most appropriate data for real time decision support.Year2022Research Station -
This newly published paper combines epidemiological modeling with historical fire assignment data from 2016-2018 to examine how COVID-19 could impact wildland firefighting workforce capacity. Scenarios were designed to capture uncertainty in vaccination rates and social distancing behaviors of wildland fire personnel, as well as variations in time and place in fire activity.Year2022Research StationPrincipal Investigator(s): Erin J. Belval, Matthew P. Thompson
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Last updated September 9, 2024