Fuels Planning: Science Synthesis and

Integration

Economic Uses Fact Sheet: 4

My Fuel Treatment Planner

United States

Department

of Agriculture

Forest Service

Rocky Mountain

Research Station

Research Note

RMRS-RN-20-4-WWW Revised

March 2005

Economics Team Co-Leads:

Roger Fight

Jamie Barbour

USDA Forest Service

Pacific Northwest Research Station

620 SW Main Street, Suite 400

Portland, OR 97205

Fuels planning: Science synthesis and integration, an interagency research/management partnership to support the Ten-Year

Fire Plan, led by Russell T. Graham, RMRS,

and Sarah M. McCaffrey, NCRS.

Synthesizing

Scientific Information

for Fire and Fuels

Project Managers

What is My Fuel Treatment Planner?

Every fuel reduction treatment has its price, and finding

that price involves sorting through a confusing array of

choices. Among them are which trees to cut, what material to utilize for forest products versus treatment in place,

equipment options, and what types of stands to treat. My

Fuel Treatment Planner (MyFTP) is a user-friendly spreadsheet application that provides a way to think about these

important questions and to calculate cost or net revenue

of treatments and fuel surface loads following treatment.

Intended Users

MyFTP was designed for fuel treatment planners including those with little or no

background in economics, forest management, or timber sales. Its area of application is in the dry-forest types of the Western United States.

Intended Uses

MyFTP is best suited for helping to

evaluate what treatments and what

treatment areas will contribute to meeting fuel reduction program objectives.

MyFTP can provide cost and revenue

information for budget development

and NEPA documents.

Required Inputs

The most important inputs are data on

the trees to be cut (species, diameter,

height if available, and number per

acre), and which trees are to be chipped

or cut into logs. Other inputs include

State and County, pretreatment surface

fuel load, harvesting system, size of

harvest unit, slope, yarding distance,

hauling distance, and prices for chips

and logs. Additional inputs are required if cost estimates for mastication or prescribed fire are needed. Agency administration hours and cost per hour and the

uses to which utilized logs would go are required if economic impacts of treatments are needed. Economic impacts are things such as the number of jobs and

income generated in the economic area.

Pacific Northwest

Research Station

Rocky Mountain

Research Station
The Fuels Planning fact sheets are based on preliminary findings. Information from fact sheets will be synthesized in an upcoming publication.

Economics Team Fact Sheets

Look for fact sheet topics from the Economics Team including prescribed

fire costs, harvesting, log hauling, NEPA and other regulations, wood utilization, economic impacts on communities, markets for wood, and harvest equipment requirements.

Fuels Planning: Synthesis and Integration

This fact sheet is one in a series being produced as part of a larger project

supported by the USDA Forest Service to synthesize new knowledge and

information relevant to fire and fuels management. Fact sheets address

topics related to stand structure, environmental impacts, economics, and

human responses to these factors. Information in the fact sheets is targeted for the dry forests of the Inland West, but is often applicable across

broad regions of the country. For more information, please visit our Web

site at:

www.fs.fed.us/fire/tech_transfer/synthesis/synthesis_index

What the Model Does

MyFTP provides an estimate of costs, revenues, economic impacts, and surface fuels associated with fuel reduction treatments that involve the potential for product

utilization. It helps you to answer questions such as: “I

have a lot of stands that look like this, I wonder what it

would cost to treat them?” or “I wonder what types of

stand treatments could pay for themselves on my district?” or “Can I combine mechanical treatments and

prescribed fire to make treatments less expensive?” It

provides for comparison of alternative treatments and

alternative treatment areas. It also provides a limited

ability to look at scenarios combined into projects.

What the Model Does Not Do

Although MyFTP allows for comparison of alternatives

and some coimaging of scenarios, it is not intended to

provide a site-specific appraisal for a project. MyFTP

was designed to address treatment costs, potential for

offsetting costs with product utilization, the effect of

treatment on surface fuel loads, and the economic impact at the time of fuel treatment. Longer term economic impacts could occur if fuel treatment affects other

forest uses such as recreation. Current research on the

effect of thining and prescribed fire treatments on recreation and other forest uses is too limited to provide

the basis for modeling these effects.

How to Obtain the Model

MyFTP and all of the documentation needed to load it

and use it can be found at: http://www.fs.fed.us/pnw/

data/soft.htm

Sample screen showing a comparison of financial and fuels data for two

different treatments.