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Title: Numerical investigation of aggregated fuel spatial pattern impacts on fire behavior

Journal Article · · Land
DOI:https://doi.org/10.3390/land6020043· OSTI ID:1369208
 [1]; ORCiD logo [2];  [3];  [4];  [5];  [2];  [6];  [1]
  1. U.S. Forest Service, Missoula, MT (United States)
  2. Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
  3. Ecologie des Forets Mediterraneennes, Avignon Cedex 9 (France)
  4. Colorado State Univ., Fort Collins, CO (United States)
  5. National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO (United States)
  6. U.S. Forest Service, Flagstaff, AZ (United States)

Here, landscape heterogeneity shapes species distributions, interactions, and fluctuations. Historically, in dry forest ecosystems, low canopy cover and heterogeneous fuel patterns often moderated disturbances like fire. Over the last century, however, increases in canopy cover and more homogeneous patterns have contributed to altered fire regimes with higher fire severity. Fire management strategies emphasize increasing within-stand heterogeneity with aggregated fuel patterns to alter potential fire behavior. Yet, little is known about how such patterns may affect fire behavior, or how sensitive fire behavior changes from fuel patterns are to winds and canopy cover. Here, we used a physics-based fire behavior model, FIRETEC, to explore the impacts of spatially aggregated fuel patterns on the mean and variability of stand-level fire behavior, and to test sensitivity of these effects to wind and canopy cover. Qualitative and quantitative approaches suggest that spatial fuel patterns can significantly affect fire behavior. Based on our results we propose three hypotheses: (1) aggregated spatial fuel patterns primarily affect fire behavior by increasing variability; (2) this variability should increase with spatial scale of aggregation; and (3) fire behavior sensitivity to spatial pattern effects should be more pronounced under moderate wind and fuel conditions.

Research Organization:
Los Alamos National Lab. (LANL), Los Alamos, NM (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
USDA Forest Service; USDOE
Grant/Contract Number:
AC52-06NA25396
OSTI ID:
1369208
Report Number(s):
LA-UR-17-23015
Journal Information:
Land, Vol. 6, Issue 2; ISSN 2073-445X
Publisher:
MDPICopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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Local forest structure variability increases resilience to wildfire in dry western U.S. coniferous forests journal January 2020
Uncertainty in the modeling of spatial big data on a pattern of bushfires holes: STEIN and TOLPEKIN journal July 2018
Variability in Mixed Conifer Spatial Structure Changes Understory Light Environments journal November 2019
Advancing Fire Science with Large Forest Plots and a Long-Term Multidisciplinary Approach journal February 2018