Pacific Northwest Research Station

Assist fire and fuel planners.

Installation Instructions:

For Internet Explorer users, right click the link and select "Save As". Specify a folder location to save the FFT installation file.

Locate the downloaded executable file (named using the convention: FuelFireTools_yyyy_mm_ddv#.exe) and double-click to run the installation/extraction utility. The default installation is C:\FuelFireTools. You can change the location or name of the folder, but it is not advisable to do so because there may be potential write privilege issues.

Installation notes:

• FFT runs on Microsoft Windows operating systems (version 7 or higher), and requires Microsoft .NET libraries (version 4 or higher, generally included in Windows installation) and Java (version 1.6 / 6 or higher).
• If you already have FFT installed, refer to the version number given in the upper right-hand corner of the Fuelbed Selector screen to see if you need to update to the current version, 2.0.2003. If your version is out of date, we recommend that you either save FFT to a new folder location or delete your existing FuelFireTools folder before installing the new version. Before deleting your old FuelFireTools folder, consider saving copies of any custom fuelbeds, burn units and environmental inputs. Existing custom fuelbeds, burn units (.bu) and environmental inputs (.ev files) can be copied into the FuelFireTools\UserFiles folder.
• Java is needed to run the calculators in FFT. The most common runtime errors are that a Java is missing, needs to be updated, or is installed in an unusual file location. You can check your Java version and download a free update at: https://www.java.com/download.

Documentation:

• Factsheet
• Quick Start Guide
• Online Help
• Workshop presentations:
  • Introduction to fuel characterization and smoke management tools including theFFT, Digital Photo Series, Piled Biomass Calculator, and BlueSky Playground. This presentation was given as part of a workshop, "Smoke Modeling from Forest to Plume" at the Association of Fire Ecology's 8th international fire conference in Tuscon, Arizona, in December 2019.
  • A basic exercise demonstrating how existing fuelbeds in FFT can be customized to represent a stand-replacement burn in mixed conifer forests.
  • An exercise to demonstrate how FFT can be used to evaluate fire behavior and consumption for different management activities including thinning and thinning followed by prescribed burning.
  • Evaluation of fuelbeds within FFT that represent insect damage in white spruce forests of Canada and Alaska.
  • A simple way to calculate greenhouse gas and carbon fluxes from wildland fire events using FFT