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Integrating plant physiology into simulation of fire behavior and effects

Journal Article · · New Phytologist
DOI:https://doi.org/10.1111/nph.18770· OSTI ID:1924578
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  1. Earth &, Environmental Sciences Division Los Alamos National Laboratory Los Alamos NM 87545 USA
  2. San Diego Supercomputer Center and Halicioglu Data Science Institute University of California San Diego La Jolla CA 92093 USA
  3. Department of Botany University of Innsbruck 6020 Innsbruck Austria
  4. Ecologie des Forêts Méditerranéennes (URFM) INRAe 84914 Avignon France
  5. USDA Forest Service Northern Research Station New Lisbon NJ 08064 USA
  6. Tall Timbers Research Station Tallahassee FL 32312 USA
  7. Department of Forest and Rangeland Stewardship Colorado State University Fort Collins CO 80523 USA
  8. Rocky Mountain Research Station USDA Forest Service Missoula MT 59801 USA
  9. Department of Biology University of New Mexico Albuquerque NM 87131 USA
  10. Southern Research Station USDA Forest Service Athens GA 30602 USA
  11. Department of Botany and Biodiversity Research Centre The University of British Columbia Vancouver BC V6T 1Z4 Canada
  12. Hawkesbury Institute for the Environment Western Sydney University Penrith NSW 2753 Australia, NSW Bushfire Risk Management Research Hub Wollongong NSW 2522 Australia
  13. School of Life Sciences and Engineering Southwest University of Science and Technology Mianyang 621010 China, Department of Crop and Forest Sciences and JRU CTFC‐AGROTECNIO Universitat de Lleida Lleida 25198 Spain
  14. Fire and Resource Assessment Program California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection South Lake Tahoe CA 96155 USA
  15. Environmental Protection and Compliance Division Los Alamos National Laboratory Los Alamos NM 87545 USA
  16. Environmental and Climate Sciences Department Brookhaven National Laboratory Upton NY 11973 USA
  17. Climate and Global Dynamics Laboratory, Terrestrial Sciences Section National Center for Atmospheric Research Boulder CO 80305 USA
  18. Rocky Mountain Research Station USDA Forest Service Flagstaff AZ 86001 USA
  19. Northern Research Station USDA Forest Service Morgantown WV 26505 USA
  20. Pacific Southwest Research Station USDA Forest Service Riverside CA 92507 USA
  21. Cibola National Forest USDA Forest Service Albuquerque NM 87113 USA
  22. Fenner School of Environment and Society Australian National University Canberra ACT 2601 Australia, School of Engineering Australian National University Canberra ACT 2601 Australia
  23. Fenner School of Environment and Society Australian National University Canberra ACT 2601 Australia

Summary

Wildfires are a global crisis, but current fire models fail to capture vegetation response to changing climate. With drought and elevated temperature increasing the importance of vegetation dynamics to fire behavior, and the advent of next generation models capable of capturing increasingly complex physical processes, we provide a renewed focus on representation of woody vegetation in fire models. Currently, the most advanced representations of fire behavior and biophysical fire effects are found in distinct classes of fine‐scale models and do not capture variation in live fuel (i.e. living plant) properties. We demonstrate that plant water and carbon dynamics, which influence combustion and heat transfer into the plant and often dictate plant survival, provide the mechanistic linkage between fire behavior and effects. Our conceptual framework linking remotely sensed estimates of plant water and carbon to fine‐scale models of fire behavior and effects could be a critical first step toward improving the fidelity of the coarse scale models that are now relied upon for global fire forecasting. This process‐based approach will be essential to capturing the influence of physiological responses to drought and warming on live fuel conditions, strengthening the science needed to guide fire managers in an uncertain future.

Sponsoring Organization:
USDOE
Grant/Contract Number:
NONE; SC0012704
OSTI ID:
1924578
Alternate ID(s):
OSTI ID: 1913815
OSTI ID: 1924581
OSTI ID: 1957915
Journal Information:
New Phytologist, Journal Name: New Phytologist Journal Issue: 3 Vol. 238; ISSN 0028-646X
Publisher:
Wiley-BlackwellCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United Kingdom
Language:
English

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