Fire Behavior
View guide.
A photo guide for use in classifying fire behavior fuel models from the Scott and Burgan (2005) library that are common to the sagebrush steppe of the American west. The goal of this guide is to enable the quick and easy classification of fuel models in sagebrush steppe to –
- enhance the mapping of fuel beds in an increasingly fire prone region,
- guide the evaluation of fuel and post-fire restoration treatments, and
- improve our understanding of fuel conditions during times of the year when wildfire preparedness is greatest (i.e. hot and dry).
View synthesis.
Fire is an integral component of many Southwest ecosystems; however, fire regimes across the region have been affected by climate change, creating conditions to which these ecosystems have not adapted. Since 1980, fire frequency, size and severity have increased in many ecosystems in the western US due to changes in climate combined with a history of fire suppression and other forest management practices, such as grazing and logging…
…The goal of this synthesis is to provide a summary of the literature, published in 2023, on fire and fire-related topics
View article.
We find that significant precursors for fire suppression resource deployment are location, fire weather, canopy cover, Wildland–Urban Interface category, and history of past fire. These results align partially with, but are distinct from, results of earlier research modelling expenditures related to suppression which include precursors such as total burned area which become observable only after an incident.
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We found three-fold differences in mean Daily Area Burned among 10 North American ecoregions, ranging from 260 ha day-1 in the Marine West Coast Forests to 751 ha day-1 in Mediterranean California. Ecoregional extreme thresholds ranged from 3,829 ha day-1 to 16,626 ha day-1, relative to a continental threshold of 7,173 ha day-1. The ~3% of events classified as extreme cumulatively account for 16–55% of total area burned among ecoregions. We observed four-fold differences in mean fire duration, ranging from 2.7 days in the Great Plains to 10.5 days in Northwestern Forested Mountains. Regions with shorter fire durations also had greater daily area burned, suggesting a paradigm of fast-growing short-duration fires in some regions and slow-growing long-duration fires elsewhere. CWD had a weak positive relationship with spread rate and extreme thresholds, and there was no pattern for AET. Discussion: Regions with shorter fire durations had greater daily area burned, suggesting a paradigm of fast-growing short-duration fires in some regions and slow-growing long-duration fires elsewhere. Although climatic conditions can set the stage for ignition and influence vegetation and fuels, finer-scale mechanisms likely drive variation in daily spread. Daily fire progression offers valuable insights into the regional and seasonal distributions of extreme single-day spread events, and how these events shape net fire effects.
Learn more about FASMEE in this video (8:26).
Fire and smoke researchers collaborated with land managers to “learn and burn” from a unique, high-intensity prescribed fire that was conducted to restore aspen forests on the Fishlake National Forest in southern Utah. Led by the Pacific Northwest Research Station, researchers from many agencies and institutions worked with fire managers to safely collect data on fire behavior, smoke composition and transport, soil dynamics, and forest ecology, with the ultimate goal of improving models used for fire and smoke management. This partnership is called the Fire and Smoke Model Evaluation Experiment (FASMEE).
View recording (53:53).
Okay. Let me go back. Okay. So let’s go back to not even a year ago, August eighth two thousand twenty three. You know, large wildfires hit western and central Maui, and, it killed at least a hundred people and resulted in three to six billion dollars of damage, mainly in the area of of the historic town of Lahaina.
And and this here’s a picture right here of just a portion of Lahaina. This one famous house survived. We could talk about that maybe. But we’re looking in this picture towards the towards the east. These are the West Maui mountains there. You can see some of the some of the grassy areas that that would that burned there and here’s the town.
View article.
Large forest fires have far-reaching impacts on the environment, human health, infrastructure and the economy. Forest fires become large when all forest types across a landscape are dry enough to burn. Mesic forests are the slowest to dry and can act as a barrier to fire growth when they are too wet to burn. Therefore, identifying the factors influencing fire occurrence in mesic forests is important for gauging fire risk across large landscapes. We quantified the key factors influencing the likelihood that an active wildfire would propagate through mesic forest. We analyzed 35 large forest fires (> 2500 ha) that occurred in Victoria, Australia where mesic and drier eucalypt forests are interspersed across mountainous terrain. We used a random forest model to evaluate 15 meteorological, topographic and disturbance variables as potential predictors of fire occurrence. These variables were extracted for points within burnt and unburnt patches of mesic forest. The likelihood of an active wildfire spreading through mesic forest increased by 65 % as vapor pressure deficit (VPD, i.e., atmospheric dryness) rose from 2.5 to 7 kPa. Other variables had substantially less influence (< 20 % change in fire occurrence) and their effects were further reduced when VPD was very high (> 6.5 kPa). Mesic forests were less likely to burn in areas with lower aridity, shallower slopes, and more sheltered topographic positions. Mesic forests 13–15 years following stand-replacing disturbance had 6 % higher chance of burning than long undisturbed forests (50 years post-disturbance). Overall, we show that topography and disturbance history cannot substantially counter the effects of high VPD. Therefore, the effectiveness of mesic forest as a barrier to the development of large forest fires is weakening as the climate warms. Our analysis also identifies areas less likely to burn, even under high VPD conditions. These areas could be prioritized as wildfire refugia.
World of Wildland Fire brings you short videos on fire weather and fire behavior relationships.
Conference webpage.
The 2024 Meeting the Moment Conference will be October 1-4, 2024 at Viewline Resort Snowmass, 100 Elbert Ln, Snowmass Village, CO 81615.
Workshop registration, closes May 15.
In Colorado, the Front Range can present unique fuel and weather conditions for wildfires. Combined with numerous wildland/urban interface and intermix settings, these conditions can be critical in wildfire management.
Register now for the Front Range Grassland Fire Workshop to increase your knowledge and understanding of the ecology, behavior, risks, and management of grassfire conditions on the Front Range.
Hear speakers from both the Front Range and the Great Plains to discuss grassland fire.
Information Packet (agenda, speaker bios, hotel, parking)