The wildland fuel cell concept: an approach to characterize fine-scale variation in fuels and fire in frequently burned longleaf pine forests

Abstract

In ecosystems with frequent surface fire regimes, fire and fuel heterogeneity has been largely overlookedowing to the lack of unburned patches and the difficulty in measuring fire behavior at fine scales (0.1–10 m). The diversevegetation in these ecosystems varies at these fine scales. This diversity could be driven by the influences of localinteractions among patches of understorey vegetation and canopy-supplied fine fuels on fire behavior, yet no method weknow of can capture fine-scale fuel and fire measurements such that these relationships could be rigorously tested. Wepresent here an original method for inventorying of fine-scale fuels and pine forests of the south-eastern USA. Using ground-based LIDAR (Light Detection and Ranging) with traditional fuelinventory approaches, we characterized within-fuel bed variation into discrete patches, termed wildland fuel cells, whichhad distinct fuel composition, characteristics, and architecture that became spatially independent beyond 0.5mexplicit fire behavior was measured residence times varied at similar scales to those observed for wildland fuel cells. The wildland fuels cell concept couldseamlessly connect empirical studies with numerical models or cellular automata models of fire behavior, representing apromising means to better predict within-burn heterogeneity and fire effects.

Citation

Hiers, J. Kevin; O’Brien, Joseph J.; Mitchell, R. J.; Grego, John M.; Loudermilk, E. Louise. 2009. The wildland fuel cell concept: an approach to characterize fine-scale variation in fuels and fire in frequently burned longleaf pine forests. International Journal of Wildland Fire18: 315–325.