Wildland Fuel Fundamentals and Applications

Keane, Robert E.

doi:10.1007/978-3-319-09015-3

Cited by 153 publications

(161 citation statements)

References 165 publications

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“…Wildland fuels are live and dead organic matter called biomass [9]. The forest fuelbed is vertically stratified into three fuel layers-ground, surface, and canopy fuels ( Figure 1).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Canopy fuels are the biomass above the Figure 1. Illustration of a wildland forest fuelbed showing the three major strata: ground, surface, and canopy fuels from Keane [9] and drawn by Ben Wilson.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The annual shed of leaves and small woody twigs from trees, for example, creates significantly different spatial distributions than the infrequent toppling of tree boles to create logs or coarse woody debris (CWD). As a result, wildland fuel landscapes can be thought of as shifting mosaics of hierarchically intersecting fuel characteristics [9]. This dynamic and complex character of fuelbeds across space and time is responsible for the great variability found in wildland fuel characteristics [11][12][13] and is perhaps the single most important concept to understand in fire management today because it influences strategic fuel management considerations such as fuel treatment longevity and effectiveness, fire return intervals, and smoke potential [9].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Numerous ecological processes influence fuel dynamics, but four are particularly important in controlling spatial and temporal distributions of wildland fuels-vegetation development, deposition, decomposition, and disturbance-the four "Ds" [9]. Wildland fuels accumulate as a result of the establishment, growth, and mortality of vegetation (development).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Understanding the spatial and temporal dynamics of fuels may provide a better grasp of the impact of various wildland fuel management activities on fuel properties [17] and it also might help explain unexpected fire behaviors and effects (e.g., [18]). It may also aid in developing effective fuel applications that integrate spatial variability in their design such as new fuel classifications, sampling methods, and geospatial data [9]. Patterns of fuel characteristics will be important inputs to the fire effects and behavior models of the future [18,19].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Spatiotemporal Variability of Wildland Fuels in US Northern Rocky Mountain Forests

Keane

2016

Forests

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Abstract:Fire regimes are ultimately controlled by wildland fuel dynamics over space and time; spatial distributions of fuel influence the size, spread, and intensity of individual fires, while the temporal distribution of fuel deposition influences fire's frequency and controls fire size. These "shifting fuel mosaics" are both a cause and a consequence of fire regimes. This paper synthesizes results from two major fuel dynamics studies that described the spatial and temporal variability of canopy and surface wildland fuel characteristics found in US northern Rocky Mountain forests. Eight major surface fuel components-four downed dead woody fuel size classes (1, 10, 100, 1000 h), duff, litter, shrub, and herb-and three canopy fuel characteristics-loading, bulk density and cover-were studied. Properties of these fuel types were sampled on nested plots located within sampling grids to describe their variability across spatiotemporal scales. Important findings were that fuel component loadings were highly variable (two to three times the mean), and this variability increased with the size of fuel particles. The spatial variability of loadings also varied by spatial scale with fine fuels (duff, litter, 1 h, 10 h) varying at scales of 1 to 5 m; coarse fuels at 10 to 150 m, and canopy fuels at 100 to 600 m. Fine fuels are more uniformly distributed over both time and space and decayed quickly, while large fuels are rare on the landscape but have a high residence time.

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“…Wildland fuels are live and dead organic matter called biomass [9]. The forest fuelbed is vertically stratified into three fuel layers-ground, surface, and canopy fuels ( Figure 1).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

See 3 more Smart Citations

Spatiotemporal Variability of Wildland Fuels in US Northern Rocky Mountain Forests

Keane

2016

Forests

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Wildfires in a warmer climate: Emission fluxes, emission heights, and black carbon concentrations in 2090–2099

2016

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Global warming is expected to considerably impact wildfire activity and aerosol emission release in the future. Due to their complexity, the future interactions between climate change, wildfire activity, emission release, and atmospheric aerosol processes are still uncertain. Here we use the process-based fire model SPITFIRE within the global vegetation model JSBACH to simulate wildfire activity for present-day climate conditions and future Representative Concentration Pathways (RCPs). The modeled fire emission fluxes and fire radiative power serve as input for the aerosol-climate model ECHAM6-HAM2, which has been extended by a semiempirical plume height parametrization. Our results indicate a general increase in extratropical and a decrease in tropical wildfire activity at the end of the 21st century. Changes in emission fluxes are most pronounced for the strongest warming scenario RCP8.5 (+49% in the extratropics, −37% in the tropics). Tropospheric black carbon (BC) concentrations are similarly affected by changes in emission fluxes and changes in climate conditions with regional variations of up to −50% to +100%. In the Northern Hemispheric extratropics, we attribute a mean increase in aerosol optical thickness of +0.031±0.002 to changes in wildfire emissions. Due to the compensating effects of fire intensification and more stable atmospheric conditions, global mean emission heights change by at most 0.3 km with only minor influence on BC long-range transport. The changes in wildfire emission fluxes for the RCP8.5 scenario, however, may largely compensate the projected reduction in anthropogenic BC emissions by the end of the 21st century.

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Characteristics and controls of extremely large wildfires in the western Mediterranean Basin

et al. 2016

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Large fires account for a disproportionally high percentage of area burned with potentially severe environmental and socioeconomic impacts. This study characterizes extremely large fires (ELFs; 2500–24,843 ha) in Portugal (1998–2013) and the concomitant fuel and weather conditions, analyzing the response of ELF size to their variation. ELF burned less shrubland‐grassland (33% of the total ELF area) than forest (59% of total), the latter primarily composed by pine and pine‐eucalypt. High fuel hazard was the norm, as indicated by median values of 0.98 for fuel load as a fraction of potential (maximum) load and time since fire >14 years over 91% of the burned area. ELF occurred under anticyclonic circulation patterns, especially ridging, and 78% of them coincided with extreme fire danger days (corresponding to infrequent conditions) in conjunction with unstable atmosphere. Containment time, fire growth rate, and energy release metrics varied by 1 more order of magnitude than ELF size, hence indicating that size alone is insufficient to describe extreme fires. Distinct combinations between ambient weather conditions, atmospheric instability, and drought defined three categories of ELF as defined by size. Quantile regression indicated that increasingly larger fires showed gradually stronger responses to fire weather severity, highlighting the difficulty in restraining fire spread in flammable landscapes in the absence of extensive fuel treatments. Data limitations inherent to the methods used are discussed, and improvements to further advance the understanding of extreme fires are suggested.

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Wildland Fuel Fundamentals and Applications

Cited by 153 publications

References 165 publications

Spatiotemporal Variability of Wildland Fuels in US Northern Rocky Mountain Forests

Spatiotemporal Variability of Wildland Fuels in US Northern Rocky Mountain Forests

Wildfires in a warmer climate: Emission fluxes, emission heights, and black carbon concentrations in 2090–2099

Characteristics and controls of extremely large wildfires in the western Mediterranean Basin

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