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Relationships between firing pattern, fuel consumption, and turbulence and energy exchange during prescribed fires

Informally Refereed

Abstract

Fuel loading and consumption during prescribed fires are well-characterized for many pine-dominated forests, but relationships between firing practices, consumption of specific fuel components, and above-canopy turbulence and energy exchange have received less attention (Ottmar et al. 2016, Clements et al. 2016). However, quantitative information on how firing patterns and the resultant fire behavior control the consumption of surface, understory and canopy fuels is important for "fine tuning" the effectiveness of fuel reduction treatments while simultaneously minimizing the adverse impacts of ember transport and smoke dispersion on local air quality. To better understand these relationships, we estimated fuel consumption using pre- and post-burn destructive sampling to quantify surface and understory fuels and LiDAR data to quantify canopy fuels, and measured turbulence and energy exchange from a network of above-canopy towers using sonic anemometers and meteorological sensors during eight prescribed fires ranging in intensity from low-intensity backing fires to high-intensity head fires in the New Jersey Pinelands.

Citation

​Clark, Kenneth L.; Gallagher, Michael; Heilman, Warren E.; Skowronski, Nicholas; Mueller, Eric; Simeoni, Albert. 2017. Relationships between firing pattern, fuel consumption, and turbulence and energy exchange during prescribed fires. In: Proceedings for the 5th international fire behavior and fuels conference; 2016 April 11-15; Portland OR. Missoula, MT: International Association of Wildland Fire: 144-149.
https://www.fs.usda.gov/research/treesearch/55852