Abstract
Both the National Fire Plan (http://199.134.225.50/nwcc/t2_wa4/ pdf/RuralAssistance.pdf) and the Healthy Forest Initiative (http://www.fs.fed.us/projects/ hfi/2003/august/documents/hfi-fact-sheet. pdf) call for reduction of hazardous fuels. Consequently, estimations of forest fuel loading at various scales become necessary. The Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) Program of the Forest Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture, is currently sampling down woody materials (DWM) at its phase 3 plots at the intensity of one plot every 96,000 acres. In this study, DWM is defined as a collection of fine woody material (FWM) (i.e., 1-hour, 10-hour, and 100-hour fuels), coarse woody material (CWM) (i.e., 1,000-hour fuel), litter, and duff. Because multiple fuel complexes may exist at a much smaller scale (fig. 11.1), it is not clear if the FIA’s program current DWM sampling intensity would produce reasonable estimations of regional fuel loading.
Parent Publication
Citation
Wang, G. Geof; Wang, Zhi-Ping; Stottlemyer, Aaron D.; Waldrop, Thomas A. 2013. A test of the Forest Inventory and Analysis Program’s down woody material indicator for regional fuel estimation in the Southern Appalachian Mountains (PROJECT SO-F-06-01). In: Potter, Kevin M.; Conkling, Barbara L., eds. 2013. Forest health monitoring: national status, trends, and analysis 2011. Gen. Tech. Rep. SRS-GTR-185. Asheville, NC: USDA-Forest Service, Southern Research Station. 143-146.
