Fire and land management planning and implementation across multiple scales

Ecosystem conditions on Federal public lands have changed, particularly wit hin the last 30 years. Wildfires in the west have increased to levels close to or above those estimated for historical conditions, despite increasing efforts and expertise in fire prevention and suppression capability. To rev erse these trends, planning for fire and land management policies, budgets, and restoration must address multiple decision levels (national, regional, local, and project) and incorporate an improved understanding of condition s and their linkage across these scales. Three fundamental issues are ident ified and discussed that relate to traditional types of planning and the as sociated lack of achievement of multi-scale integrated resource and fire ob jectives. Various examples of planning that address these three fundamental issues at different scales are compared to traditional types of planning. Outcomes predicted for an example national scale landscape dynamics model a re used to illustrate the differences between three different multi-scale m anagement scenarios.