This paper was presented at the conference ‘Integrating spatial technologies and ecological principles for a new age in fire management’, Boise, Idaho, USA, June 1999 The ongoing development of sophisticated fire behavior and effects models has demonstrated the need for a comprehensive system of fuel classification that more accurately captures the structural complexity and geographic diversity of fuelbeds. The Fire and Environmental Research Applications Team (FERA) of the USDA Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station, is developing a national system of fuel characteristic classification (FCC). The system is designed to accommodate researchers and managers operating at a variety of scales, and who have access to a variety of kinds of input data. Users can generate fuel characteristics by accessing existing fuelbed descriptions (fuelbed prototypes) using generic information such as cover type or vegetation form. Fuelbed prototypes will provide the best available predictions of the kind, quality and abundance of fuels. Users can accept these default settings or modify some or all of them using more detailed information about vegetation structure and fuel biomass. When the user has completed editing the fuelbed data, the FCC system calculates or infers quantitative fuel characteristics (physical, chemical, and structural properties) and probable fire parameters specific to that fuelbed. Each user-described fuelbed is also assigned to one of approximately 192 stylized fuel characteristic classes.
Gaseous nitrogen inputs due to asymbiotic nitrogen fixation and outputs due to biological denitrification were estimated for a mature mid-successional Pseudotsugamenziesii (Mirb.) Franco–Thujaplicata Donn–Tsugaheterophylla (Raf.) Sarg. forest in southwestern British Columbia. Forest floor material, mineral soil, decaying wood, foliage, and bark were incubated in an atmosphere of 10 kPa C2H2 to allow the simultaneous measurement of N2O production by denitrifying bacteria and C2H2 reduction by free-living bacteria and blue-green algae. Forest floor material accounted for 70% of an estimated total annual nitrogen fixation of 0.3 kg N•ha−1•year −1.•Relatively small amounts of nitrogen were fixed in mineral soil, decaying wood, and foliage, and no indication of nitrogen fixation activity in bark was detected. Some denitrification was found; it was essentially negligible, although possibly underestimated. The net gaseous nitrogen input into the mid-successional forests of the study area is likely to be < 5% of the total net nitrogen inputs, which are primarily from precipitation.
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