Fire and Fuels Extension: Model description [Chapter 2]

Abstract

The Fire and Fuels Extension to the Forest Vegetation Simulator is a model that simulates fuel dynamics and potential fire behavior over time, in the context of stand development and management. Existing models are used to represent forest stand development (the Forest Vegetation Simulator, Wykoff and others 1982), fire behavior (Rothermel 1972, Van Wagner 1977, and Scott and Reinhardt 2001), and fire effects (Reinhardt and others 1997). These models are linked together with newly developed models of snag and fuel dynamics. Users can simulate fuel treatments including prescribed fire, thinning, and mechanical treatments. Wildland fires can also be modeled. Model output includes predicted fuel loadings over time, and measures of fire hazard including potential flame length, canopy base height and canopy bulk density, torching and crowning indices and potential stand mortality over the simulation period. If a prescribed fire or wildland fire is simulated, output also includes predicted fire behavior, fuel consumption, smoke production, and tree mortality.

Parent Publication

• The Fire and Fuels Extension to the Forest Vegetation Simulator

Citation

Beukema, Sarah J.; Reinhardt, Elizabeth D.; Greenough, Julee A.; Robinson, Donald C. E.; Kurz, Werner A. 2003. Fire and Fuels Extension: Model description [Chapter 2]. In: Reinhardt, Elizabeth; Crookston, Nicholas L. (Technical Editors). The Fire and Fuels Extension to the Forest Vegetation Simulator. Gen. Tech. Rep. RMRS-GTR-116. Ogden, UT: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station. p. 11-60.