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  1. Simulation of long-term landscape-level fuel treatment effects on large wildfires

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    Author(s): Mark A. Finney; Rob C. Seli; Charles W. McHugh; Alan A. Ager; Bernhard Bahro; James K. Agee
    Date: 2008
    Source: International Journal of Wildland Fire. 16: 712-727
    Publication Series: Scientific Journal (JRNL)
    PDF: Download Publication  (17.0 MB)

    Description

    A simulation system was developed to explore how fuel treatments placed in topologically random and optimal spatial patterns affect the growth and behaviour of large fires when implemented at different rates over the course of five decades. The system consisted of a forest and fuel dynamics simulation module (Forest Vegetation Simulator, FVS), logic for deriving fuel model dynamics from FVS output, a spatial fuel treatment optimization program, and a spatial fire growth and behaviour model to evaluate the performance of the treatments in modifying large-fire growth. Simulations were performed for three study areas: Sanders County in western Montana, the Stanislaus National Forest in California, and the Blue Mountains in southeastern Washington. For different spatial treatment strategies, the results illustrated that the rate of fuel treatment (percentage of land area treated per decade) competes against the rates of fuel recovery to determine how fuel treatments contribute to multidecade cumulative impacts on the response variables. Using fuel treatment prescriptions that simulate thinning and prescribed burning, fuel treatment arrangements that are optimal in disrupting the growth of large fires require at least 1 to 2 percent of the landscape to be treated each year. Randomly arranged units with the same treatment prescriptions require about twice that rate to produce the same fire growth reduction. The results also show that the topological fuel treatment optimization tends to balance maintenance of previous units with treatment of new units. For example, with 2-percent landscape treatment annually, fewer than 5 percent of the units received three or more treatments in five decades with most being treated only once or twice and about 35 percent remaining untreated after five decades.

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    Citation

    Finney, Mark A.; Seli, Rob C.; McHugh, Charles W.; Ager, Alan A.; Bahro, Bernhard; Agee, James K. 2008. Simulation of long-term landscape-level fuel treatment effects on large wildfires. International Journal of Wildland Fire. 16: 712-727

    Keywords

    Fire modeling, fuel treatment

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