How fuel treatment types, locations, and amounts impact landscape-scale fire behavior and carbon dynamics

Abstract

When managing for fire across a large landscape, the types of fuel treatments, the locations of treatments, and the percentage of the landscape being treated should all interact to impact not only potential fire size, but also carbon dynamics across that landscape. To investigate these interactions, we utilized a forest growth model (FVS-FFE) and fire simulation software (FlamMap, Randig), integrated through GIS software (ArcMap9.3), to quantify the impacts that varied landscape-scale fuel treatments have on burn probability, fire size, short-term carbon loss, and long-term carbon storage. Thirteen fuel treatment scenarios were simulated on a 42,000 hectare landscape in the Klamath Mountains of northern California including one untreated, three proposed by the U.S. Forest Service, and nine that were spatially optimized and developed within the Treatment Optimization Model in FlamMap. The nine spatially optimized scenarios varied by treatment type (prescribed fire, mastication, and thin + burn) and landscape intensity (10 percent, 20 percent, and 30 percent of the landscape treated). Each treatment scenario was subjected to 10,000 simulated wildfires with random ignition locations in order to develop burn probability and mean fire size for each scenario, which subsequently impacted long-term carbon storage projections.

Parent Publication

• Proceedings of the large wildland fires conference; May 19-23, 2014; Missoula, MT

Citation

Dicus, Christopher A.; Osborne, Kevin J. 2015. How fuel treatment types, locations, and amounts impact landscape-scale fire behavior and carbon dynamics. In: Keane, Robert E.; Jolly, Matt; Parsons, Russell; Riley, Karin. Proceedings of the large wildland fires conference; May 19-23, 2014; Missoula, MT. Proc. RMRS-P-73. Fort Collins, CO: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station. p. 50-59.