Abstract
Many concepts used in fire management concern how fuels are interpreted, used, and manipulated in fire management. Often, these concepts have limitations that may make their use inappropriate for some circumstances. This chapter presents four common fuel concepts employed in wildland fire management and science and discusses their limitations in the context of wildland fuel ecology.
Sometimes a concept is baffling not because it is profound but because it is wrong
E.O. Wilson, American ecologist
Access this chapter
Tax calculation will be finalised at checkout
Purchases are for personal use only
References
Agee JK, Skinner CN (2005) Basic principles of forest fuel reduction treatments. For Ecol Manage 211:83–96
Anderson HE (1966) Flammability features of forest fuels. Unpublished Report on file at the Missoula Fire Sciences Laboratory, Missoula, MT 22Â pp
Bachmann A, Allgower B (2001) A consistent wildland fire risk terminology is needed! Fire Manage Today 61(4):28–33
Bessie WC, Johnson EA (1995) The relative importance of fuels and weather on fire behaviour in subalpine forests. Ecology 76(3):747–762
Burgan RE, Rothermal RC (1984) BEHAVE: fire behavior prediction and fuel modeling system–FUEL subsystem. USDA Forest Service
Crow TR, Gustafson EJ (1997) Ecosystem management: managing natural resources in time and space. In: Kohm KA, Franklin JF (eds) Creating forestry for the 21st century. Island Press, Washington, DC, pp 215–229
Dimitrakopoulos AP (2001) A statistical classification of Mediterranean species based on their flammability components. Int J Wildland Fire 10(2):113–118. doi:10.1071/WF01004
Dimitrakopoulos AP, Papaioannou K (2001) Flammability assessment of Mediterranean forest fuels. Fire Technol 37(2):143–152. doi:10.1023/a:1011641601076
Finney MA (2005) The challenge of quantitative risk analysis for wildland fire. For Ecol Manage 211:97–108
Finney MA (2006) An overview of FlamMap fire modeling capabilities. In: Andrews PL, Butler BW (eds) Fuels management—how to measure success, Portland, OR, 28–30 March 2006. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station, Proceedings RMRS-P-41, pp 213–220
Fosberg MA (1970) Drying rates of heartwood below fiber saturation. For Sci 16:57–63
Gisborne HT (1947) Fundamentals of fire behavior. Fire Control Notes 9(1):13–24
Hardy CC (2005) Wildland fire hazard and risk: problems, definitions, and context. For Ecol Manage 211:73–82
Jenkins MJ, Page WG, Hebertson EG, Alexander ME (2012) Fuels and fire behavior dynamics in bark beetle-attacked forests in Western North America and implications for fire management. For Ecol Manage 275:23–34. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.foreco.2012.02.036
Jolly WM, Parsons RA, Hadlow AM, Cohn GM, McAllister SS, Popp JB, Hubbard RM, Negron JF (2012) Relationships between moisture, chemistry, and ignition of Pinus contorta needles during the early stages of mountain pine beetle attack. For Ecol Manage 269:52–59. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.foreco.2011.12.022
Kane JM, Varner JM, Knapp EE, Powers RF (2010) Understory vegetation response to mechanical mastication and other fuels treatments in a ponderosa pine forest. Appl Veg Sci 13(2):207–220. doi:10.1111/j.1654-109X.2009.01062.x
Keane RE, Finney MA (2003) The simulation of landscape fire, climate, and ecosystem dynamics. In: Veblen TT, Baker WL, Montenegro G, Swetnam TW (eds) Fire and global change in temperate ecosystems of the Western Americas, vol 160 (Ecological Studies). Springer-Verlag, New York, pp 32–68
Kreye JK, Kobziar LN, Camp JM (2014) Immediate and short-term response of understory fuels following mechanical mastication in a pine flatwoods site of Florida, USA. For Ecol Manage 313:340–354. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.foreco.2013.10.034
Liodakis S, Bakirtzis D, Dimitrakopoulos A (2002) Ignition characteristics of forest species in relation to thermal analysis data. Thermochim Acta 390(1–2):83–91. doi:http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/S0040-6031(02)00077-1
Mak EHT (1988) Notes: measuring foliar flammability with the limiting oxygen index method. For Sci 34(2):523–529
North M, Collins BM, Stephens S (2012) Using fire to increase the scale, benefits, and future maintenance of fuels treatments. J For 110 (7):392–401. doi:10.5849/jof.12-021
NWCG (2006) Fire terminology. http://www.nwcg.gov/pms/pubs/glossary/. Accessed 1 June 2014
Parsons RA, Mell WE, McCauley P (2010) Linking 3D spatial models of fuels and fire: effects of spatial heterogeneity on fire behavior. Ecol Model 222(3):679–691
Philpot CW (1969) Seasonal changes in heat content and ether extractive content of chamise. Res. Pap. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Intermountain Forest and Range Experiment Station, Research Paper INT-61, Ogden, UT, 10Â pp
Pollet J, Omi PN (2002) Effect of thinning and prescribed burning on crown fire severity in ponderosa pine forests. Int J Wildland Fire 11:1–10
Reinhardt ED, Keane RE, Calkin DE, Cohen JD (2008) Objectives and considerations for wildland fuel treatment in forested ecosystems of the interior western United States. For Ecol Manage 256(12):1997–2006. doi:10.1016/j.foreco.2008.09.016
Schoennagel T, Veblen TT, Negron JF, Smith JM (2012) Effects of mountain pine beetle on fuels and expected fire behavior in lodgepole pine forests, Colorado, USA. PLoS ONE 7(1):e30002
Thaxton JM, Platt WJ (2006) Small-scale fuel variation alters fire intensity and shrub abundance in a pine savanna. Ecology 87(5):1331–1337. doi:10.1890/0012-9658(2006)87[1331:SFVAFI]2.0.CO;2
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
Copyright information
© 2015 Springer International Publishing Switzerland
About this chapter
Cite this chapter
Keane, R. (2015). Fuel Concepts. In: Wildland Fuel Fundamentals and Applications. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-09015-3_10
Download citation
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-09015-3_10
Published:
Publisher Name: Springer, Cham
Print ISBN: 978-3-319-09014-6
Online ISBN: 978-3-319-09015-3
eBook Packages: Biomedical and Life SciencesBiomedical and Life Sciences (R0)