Useful Life of Prescribed Fires in a Southern Mediterranean Basin: An Application to Pinus pinaster Stands in the Sierra Morena Range

Abstract

Prescribed fire is a globally relevant fuel treatment for surface fuel management and wildfire hazard reduction. However, Mediterranean ecosystems are adapted to low and moderate fires; hence, the useful life of prescribed fires is limited. Useful life is defined as the effective rotation length of prescribed fires to mitigate fire spread based on critical surface intensity for crown combustion. In this sense, the useful life of a prescribed fire focuses on surface fuel dynamics and its potential fire behavior. In Pinus pinaster stands, the useful life can be established between 0 and 4 years. Canopy base height, time elapsed from the burning, postfire precipitation, and fine fuel moisture content during the burning were identified as the most important variables in postburn fuel dynamics. Other stand characteristics and postfire precipitation can improve the fine fuel and live fuel dynamics models. Our findings support prescribed fires as an effective fuel treatment in the medium term for forest fire prevention, according to stand characteristics and burning implementation conditions. In this sense, forest managers can use the proposed decision tree to identify the useful life of each prescribed fire based on fine fuel moisture content during burning implementation.

Assessing the effects of alternative fuel treatments to reduce wildfire exposure

“…Simulation modelling has been used for evaluating wildfire exposure and wildfire risk-mitigation strategies from the forest stand scale to the landscape, regional, and national levels (Collins et al 2011;Ager et al 2020). Fire simulation models such as FlamMap (Finney 2006) are increasingly used in the European Union to assess wildfire hazard and risk (Xofis et al 2020;Palaiologou et al 2021;Salis et al 2013), as well as the effects of fuel treatment on wildfire spread and behavior at a landscape scale (Cortes-Molino et al 2020;Molina et al 2021). FlamMap requires gridded geospatial input data on topography and fire behavior prediction (FBP) fuel types, along with weather streams.…”