REPORT TO THE WINSTON CHURCHILL MEMORIAL TRUST OF AUSTRALIA To review methods of fuel assessment and the tools used to measure and predict the accumulation of fuels in natural landscapes - USA, Canada I understand that the Churchill trust may publish this Report, either in hard copy or on the internet or both, and consent to publication. I indemnify the Churchill Trust against any loss, costs or damage it may suffer arising out of any claim or proceedings made against the Trust in respect of or arising out of the publication of any Report submitted to the Trust and which the Trust places on a website for access over the internet. I also warrant that my Final Report is original and does not infringe the copyright of any person, or contain anything which is, or the incorporation of which into the Final Report is, actionable for defamation, a breach of any privacy law or obligation, breach of confidence, contempt of court, passing- off or contravention of any private right or of any law. Catherine Mardell PSM (BAppS Parks, Recreation & Heritage) Ranger 22 Blackbutt Road Port Macquarie NSW 2444 AUSTRALIA +61 (0)2 6588 5555 +61(0)409 605 702
[email protected] [email protected] www.whatfuelsfire.blogspot.com Catherine Mardell
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INDEX
Introduction ............................................................................... 5 Program..................................................................................... 8 Observations of US Methodology ................................................. 12 How Fuels are Measured in the United States ............................... 12 History..................................................................................... 12 Further Development of Fuels Models .......................................... 13 Natural Photo Series .................................................................. 14 Fuel Characteristic Classification System ...................................... 15 Fuel Moisture ............................................................................ 16 Remote Area Weather Stations ................................................... 17 Fire Monitoring Handbook........................................................... 18 Burn Severity Mapping............................................................... 19 FFI .......................................................................................... 20 New Technology and Innovation.................................................. 21 Post burn monitoring and fuel and vegetation matching in Canada .. 22 Wildland Fire Decision Support System ........................................ 23 Schools Education ..................................................................... 23 Summary of Key Findings........................................................... 25 Recommendations ..................................................................... 27 Acknowledgements.................................................................... 30 Bibliography ............................................................................. 31
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Introduction The 2009 Victorian fires changed the psyche of all those involved in Australian fire management, just as previous catastrophic fires across the globe have challenged and changed the fire managers of the day. Together we have collectively struggled to understand what happened and to find ways to improve our country’s and our own agencies’ performance in managing fire so that future fire events have less of a catastrophic impact on Australians and the Australian biota. The pressure is further increased to better understand and manage Australian fire fuels with the expected increase in the extent and frequency of wildfires, due to the impact of climate change. As a ranger for the NSW National Parks and Wildlife Service, I work at the biodiversity end of the fire management spectrum, with structural fire managers operating at the urban end of the continuum. As a disclaimer then, my biases are very much centred around maintaining or improving biodiversity, as well as protecting the community and their assets. My original project proposal was to examine fresh approaches to planning fuel hazard reduction, particularly at a landscape level, as I felt frustrated with the artificial boundaries applied across land units that are created by legislation and administration. After examining the issues and after lengthy discussions with my project sponsors and colleagues, it was suggested to me that what was needed in the industry was a consistent approach to measuring fire fuels and managing that data across Australia. The resultant practical investigation was to examine how fire fuels are measured and how fuels data is used and stored in the US and Catherine Mardell
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Canada. Saying this investigation is from a practical perspective is not to disparage fire researchers, who, more often than not, have lengthy fire management experience, but by contrast, my examination was through the eyes of an end user of products produced by fire researchers. I understand the difficulties of juggling the competing demands experienced by a land and fire manager and would like to advocate for effective and easy-to-use methods for assessing and comparing fuels data. I would like the methods to be based in good science and make sense across land units and the arbitrary boundaries that necessarily carve up almost every square hectare of our country. The recommendations I present to contribute to an Australian approach to fuels in this paper are a combination of findings from the Churchill Study Tour and my own experience and ideas. I trust the result will be useful and will positively contribute to the development of a truly Australia-wide, systemised approach to collecting, storing and analysing fuels data. I aspire to an Australian system of fuels characterisation and classification, unfettered by artificial boundaries or politic, which collects data that can be compared across the country and is practical and meets the needs of the range of fire managers; from landholders to practitioners, fire scientists, agency leaders, as well as the community and government. Travelling as a Churchill Fellow and meeting with many bright minds in fire and fuel management across North America, was an incredibly stimulating and humbling experience. I learned so much more than what I set out to achieve, across a vast array of fire management nuances. Many of the contacts I made will be friends for life and many Catherine Mardell
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will be colleagues, separated only by the antithetical time zones of email. A comprehensive record of my study tour including photos, video interviews with the people I met and a commentary is available on the internet as a blog at: http://whatfuelsfire.blogspot.com.au
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Program USA 2011 June 20 – 24: San Francisco, California. Visited Scott Stephens - Associate Professor of Fire Sciences University of California Berkeley, field trip to inspect the Hopland Heath Experiment where fuels were quantified in plots after a range of removal treatments and then re-measured to understand how quickly fuels re-accumulated.
June 27: Point Reyes National Seashore, Point Reyes. Visited Alison Forrestal – Fire Ecologist, National Park Service, field trip to inspect areas of mechanical hazard reduction, the influence of plant pathogens and plant death on fuels accumulation, as well as issues with loads of fuels produced by the introduced blue gum Eucalyptus globulus. Fuel information collected using Brown’s transects before and after treatments as well as burn composite index to measure and map burn severity where each strata is rated 1 year post fire to measure burn severity.
June 28 – July 1: San Luis Obispo, California. Field trip with Dan Turner, Executive Director of the Urban Forest Ecosystems Institute at Cal Poly, Battalion Captain, Phill Veneris and Unit Forester, Alan Peters of San Luis Obispo County CAL FIRE (California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection) the Irish Hills south of the small town of Los Osos. CAL FIRE routinely contributes to National Fuel Moisture Database using 3 plots in 3 veg types to sample moisture twice monthly.
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Visited Dr Chris Dicus, Wildland Fire and Fuels Program, California Polytechnic State University in the Fire Lab to review the curricula presented to students on fuel management and field inspection Los Padres National Forest.
July 4 – 6: Sequoia Kings Canyon National Parks, Ash Mountain, California. Visited Tony Caprio, Fire Ecologist, Karen Folger, GIS specialist and Ben Jacobs, Fuels Manager at the park headquarters. Went on a field inspection to observe and assist the Fire FX team to collect fuel metrics according to the US NPS Fire Monitoring Manual. The fuels data has been collected at these parks since 1968 when prescribed burning was re-introduced after a significant hiatus. The comprehensive data set is used to build a fuels map to feed into a decision matrix that informs priorities for prescribed burning. The staff highlighted the problem that exists between agencies where different fuel mapping and vegetation mapping standards pose difficulties comparing data across the boundaries between land managed by a range of authorities and highlighted the need for a cogent national protocol.
July 7 – 9: Grand Canyon National Park, Grand Canyon Village South Rim, Arizona. Visited Windy Bunn, Fire Ecologist, Eric Gdula, the Fire GIS specialist, Li Brannifors, lead of the Fire Effects Team at the park headquarters looking at fire management planning and a field trip to see how fire intensity mapping is undertaken in the park.
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July 10 – 12: Flagstaff, Arizona. Visited Linda Wadleigh Fire Ecologist and Wesley Hall, Fuels specialist, US Forest Service, Flagstaff Headquarters. Inspection to the Coconino National Forest to observe fuel monitoring methods. Field inspection to the Verde Valley with Scott Spleiss, Prescribed Fire & Fuels Specialist and Ed Paul, Bucky Yowell and Corey Carlson who work together on fuels management for the US Forest Service, prescribed and wildfire in the Prescott and Coconino National Forests.
July 13 – 16: Grand Teton National Park, Jackson Hole, Montana. Visited Diane Abendroth - Fire ecologist and Ron Steffens, Fire Monitor who both work as part of Teton Interagency Fire, which brings together the Grand Teton National Park and the Bridger Teton National Forest for co-operative fire management. Field inspection of post burn units within Grand Teton National Park.
July 17 – 23: Seattle, Washington. Visited Dr Roger Ottmar and Bob Vihnanek, part of the Fire and Environmental Research Applications Team at the Pacific Wildland Fire Sciences Lab, for the US Forest Service. Field inspection to Winthrop with Lucrecia Pettinari, an intern at the fire lab, and Jon Dvorak field crew manager to meet Dr Susan Prichard, Fuel Characterisation and Classification System Database Manager.
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July 24 – 26: Boise, Idaho. Visited the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) hosted by Doug Alexander, acting Chief, Fire Management Branch, of the US Fish and Wildlife Service, and Dick Bahr, the Lead for the Fire Science & Ecology Program in the National Park Service Branch of Wildland Fire. Met with Tom Zimmerman, Program Manager of the Wildland Fire Decision Support System (WFDSS), and his team. Bill Kaage, National Fire Management Officer, Nate Benson, the Fire Ecologist Program Leader for the NPS and Rich Schwab co-ordinator of Burned Area Emergency Response (BAER) Teams.
July 27 – 30: Missoula, Montana. Visited the Rocky Mountain Research Station at the Fire Sciences Laboratory met with Jim Reardon, Forester, with the Fire, Fuel and Smoke Science Program. Matt Jolly, Ecologist, Jane Kapler Smith, Ecologist, Duncan Lutes, a Fire Ecologist University of Montana in Missoula to briefly catch up with Carl Seielstad, Associate Research Professor and Fire/Fuels Program Manager, National Center for Landscape Fire Analysis and Eric Rowell, an Image Programmer/Remote Sensing Analyst.
Canada Aug 1 – 3: Banff, Alberta. Visited Banff National Park and met with Robert Osiowy, Project Coordinator for the Mountain Parks Fire Restoration Project, Parks Canda. Dave Verhulst, the Fire Communications Officer and Jane Park, Fire & Vegetation Specialist and technical assistant Nick Woode in Douglas Fire Plots on the Fairholme Benchlands in Banff National Park, Parks Canada.
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Observations of US Methodology
How Fuels are Measured in the United States There are a range of methods used to describe, quantify and model fire fuels in the United States of America (US), although there is no single protocol that has been adopted by the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC), the peak body for wildland fire fighting, as a standard approach to guide the measurement and quantification fuels across the country. By contrast, data relating to fuel moisture is collected across the country and is collated to help inform a country-wide fire danger rating.
History Among the first methodical descriptions of fire fuels in the US was the work of aeronautical engineer Richard Rothermel, who developed a method for modeling the spread of wildfire in 1972 at the US Department of Agriculture, Fire Sciences Lab at Missoula, Montana. Rothermel’s Surface Fire-spread model was the first quantitative and systematic tool for predicting the spread and intensity of forest fires and is still the basis of many of the predictive tools currently used in the US. He set out to develop a tool that could be used by fire managers in the field to make broad predictions of fire behaviour. While teaching at the Fire Training Center in Arizona during the late 70’s and 80’s, Richard Rothermel cautioned students to ‘use the model to the best of your ability, and then use what your eyes are telling you. One without the other is incomplete’. Rothermel developed his computations (fuel models) for 11 broad types of vegetation that was expanded to 13 fuel models by Albini in 1976. The fuel models were representations of typical fuel profiles, including; load, bulk density, fuel particle size, heat content, and Catherine Mardell
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moisture of extinction. Rothermel’s model has endured as the basis of the majority of fire behaviour models in use in the US today.
Further Development of Fuels Models In 2005 a new set of 40 fuel models were developed by Scott and Burgan that refer to fuels types, as opposed to vegetation types, as the original 13 fuel models did. Fuels data compiled from the Natural Fuels Photo Series (Ottmar and Vihnanek 1998, 1999, 2000, 2002; Ottmar and others 1998, 2000, 2002, 2003; Wright and others 2002) informed the fuel conditions that were needed in the models. The Scott and Burgan fuel models included a fuel moisture component and aimed to allow for fire behavior predictions for times outside extreme fire conditions. They also aimed to take account of areas of high humidity, to include forests with a grass or shrub understory and to improve the ability of the model to simulate changes in fire behavior after relatively recent fuel treatments. To date the models have not been validated. The set of 40 fuel models predict fire behaviour in a range of fuel types and no fuel measurement is required to apply the models. Many of the fire practitioners I spoke with on this trip, use the fuel models they know to most closely approximate fire behaviour in their area (in local fuel types) and often pair the fuel model after observations of the fire behaviour. Sometimes the fuel model used does not equate to the fuels on the ground, but the model selected works for the observed fire behaviour.
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Natural Photo Series One method used in the US to assess fire fuel accumulation, and that underpins the fuel assumptions in Scott and Burgan models, is the Natural Fuels Photo series, developed at the US Forest Service’ Pacific Wildland Fire Sciences Lab. The Natural Photo Series consists of a set of photographs with accompanying fuelbed characteristics data of a range of vegetation types in a range of conditions. The photo series are grouped geographically for the US and were developed as a simple visual guide for practitioners to use to estimate fuel loadings. The fuel loading data for the natural photo series were arrived at by destructively sampling each of the vegetation types and growth conditions resulting in a range of values including vegetation composition, structure, and loading; woody material loading; density by size class, forest floor depth, and loading; and various site characteristics. The Natural Fuels Photo Series currently includes 15 volumes representing various regions of the United States and one volume each from Brazil and Mexico. There are one to four series in each volume, each having four to 17 sites. Sites include standard, wide-angle, and stereo-pair photographs. When assessing fuels, the assessor takes the Natural Photo Series volume into the field that relates to the region under investigation. Then the assessor visually selects the vegetation type and the photo that most closely approximates the condition, arrangement and volume of fuels under scrutiny. The Natural Photo Series is a simple system that is easy transport and straightforward to use, particularly once the user has had some practise using the visual guide. Its strengths include that it is set up in volumes that represent fuels in regions across the country, it’s low tech and easily transportable and the data represented in the guide is the result of destructive sampling.
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A further development of the Natural Photo Series is the Digital Photo Series, which is an interface to the existing database of fuels information and photographs from the Natural Fuels Series. The Digital Photo Series is able to be queried and has the ability to grow as new photo series are developed. It is available both as a standalone interface and via the internet.
Fuel Characteristic Classification System The Fuel Characteristic Classification System (FCCS) is a software program that builds on the Natural Photo Series idea, and allows users to combine fuel components to create customised fuel beds on any scale. Once a fuelbed has been selected or compiled, the program calculates the fire behavior potential, the crown fire potential and the available fuel potential each on a scale of 1 to 9 and produces the Fuel Characteristic Classification System Potential. The FCCS Potential aims to simplify the complex fuels data into an easy to digest rating. Other reports that can be generated by the FCCS include surface fire behaviour, a summary of basic fuel bed characteristics including percentage cover, fuel loading in tones per acre, depth in inches and a fuel area index ft2 / ft2, a summary of fuel bed characteristics by stratum and category, a summary of input data, fuel loading and total carbon by stratum and category. The developers of the FCCS have plans to validate the system in the near future. One limitation that I could see of the FCCS is that it does not warehouse geographically tagged fuel assessment data for future reference or comparison. Data can be exported to other special applications relating to fuel at specific sites for future reference, but needs to be stored elsewhere.
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The algorithms used by the FCCS would have to altered materially to be able to use in Australia due to the different fuel types. At CalPoly in San Luis Obispo, students learn to use Scott and Burgan Standard Fire Behavior Fuel Models as well as a suite of fire behavior models based on Rothermel's Surface Fire Spread Model developed in 1972. They are not yet taught the Natural Photo Series, Digital Photo Series or the FCCS.
Fuel Moisture Live and dead fuel moisture data is widely sampled by fire managers in the US Forest Service and other fire agencies, at permanent and temporary sites to guide timing for prescribed burning. The fuel moisture readings are used to indicate when fuels are ready to burn in a controlled manner, as well as assisting in calculating how much fuel will be consumed during prescribed burning for emissions reporting. Fuel moistures are also used to predict wildfire behaviour. Moisture in the 1000 hour fuel category (larger than 3 inches diameter) is measured by placing sticks (small poles) on the permanent sites. The sticks are allowed to acclimatise, then are cored every 15 days, with the sawdust being dried in a computerized Computrac moisture analyzer. The moisture analyzer is a device from Arizona Instruments that was developed for measuring moisture in compounds such as chemicals and concrete and has been applied to measuring live fuel moisture. The fuels data collected by the US Forest Service is routinely contributed to the National Fuels Moisture Database. Live fuels are collected at temporary sites within planned burn locations are carefully transported in climate controlled airtight Catherine Mardell
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containers to ensure the fuels do not transpire while returning to the office for the analysis. The Computrac moisture analyser works by weighing the material then drying it and reweighing to give the fuel moisture content. It is fast and only takes about 5 minutes to process one sample. The unit cost of the machine is quite expensive though at around $8,000 USD.
Remote Area Weather Stations Remote area weather stations (RAWS) are used to collect weather data from across the US. The RAWS units automatically collect, store and forward data to the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) in Boise, Idaho, via a satellite, and is used to help formulate a fire danger rating for the US. Data is also automatically forwarded to several other computer systems including the Weather Information Management System (WIMS) and regional climate centres across the country. Dead fuel moisture data is sampled remotely by the RAWS with a probe inserted in a dowel that represents 10 hour fuels (1/4 -1 inch in diameter). In the US, fuel moisture is generally reported by fuel diameter classes, as per the timelag principle (Pyne et al. 1996). The time lag principle states that a fuel’s timelag is proportional to its diameter and is defined as the average time it takes dead fuel to reach 2/3's of its way to equilibrium with the moisture of its local environment. Dead fuels in the US are categorised into four size classes and fuel moisture data that is collected both manually and via automated methods such as the RAWS are used in determining fire potential.
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Fire Monitoring Handbook The National Park Service developed the Fire Monitoring Handbook as a standard protocol to evaluate fire management programs, to allow for comparison of data between parks and to document historical fire programs among other intentions. Published in 2003, the protocol is comprehensive and deals with collecting environmental data as well as fire observation, developing objectives for monitoring programs, designing monitoring programs, vegetation monitoring protocols and guidance for data analysis and program evaluation. The complexity and extent of monitoring data increases from level to level throughout the document. Fire management units in parks typically employ teams of technical personnel, known as Fire FX teams, to collect data on fuel accumulation as well as during burn and post burn data. Fire FX team leaders need to have good skills in relation to plant identification, personnel management and a doggedness to collect the data in a methodical and repeatable manner. Personality is thus a very important factor in the successful collection of fuel data, particularly when the fuel data collected is detailed and comprehensive. Usually the collectors of the data do not undertake the analysis of the data but concern themselves with maintaining data sets. The notion of collecting a standard set of environmental data in relation to fire management and more particularly fuels is a sound concept however it requires a significant investment in terms of resources to maintain monitoring plots. Staff on the ground indicated that abbreviated subsets of data were sometimes collected, known as rapid assessments, although they were still quantitative, to satisfy ad hoc questions when planning hazard reduction programs, rather than awaiting full data sets as supplied by Fire FX teams. Data sets collected may or may not be used to answer monitoring questions or Catherine Mardell
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evaluate programs, but will serve as a unique repository of environmental data available to be queried at some time in the future. A difficulty expressed during the interviews with NPS was that the data collected under this protocol is not interchangeable with fuel assessment tools used by other land managers on adjoining tenure, where the results can be materially variant when reporting for legislative purposes, especially smoke emissions control and management.
Burn Severity Mapping The NPS fire management staff at the Grand Canyon National Park use Landsat images as a base to produce fire severity maps. A visual assessment is conducted after fires to calibrate the imagery produced by Landsat at a resolution of 30m pixels across the country. Actual fire severity is rated at a number of plots across each fire including planned and unplanned fires and is compared with the Landsat data, via a Trimble hand held tablet in the field. A proforma has been developed that qualitatively rates the post fire effects in the understory and overstory in a circular plot with a 15m radius. Assessment data is collected via the tablet and uploaded upon return to the office. Once there is confidence in the severity data, the Landsat image of the whole fire is recalibrated accordingly and a map produced that is used to inform planning for prescribed burning as well as identifying strategic advantages (areas of high severity) for controlling wildfires. The method has already proved successful assisting planning to control wildfires in the park. Given the open canopies of the forest types sampled this method works well in the US but may be of limited use in closed canopy forests especially where low to moderate intensity burning is Catherine Mardell
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undertaken.
FFI It seems all government agencies and fire managers love their acronyms, and nowhere else more than America! FFI as it is named, is an acronym that stands for FEAT/FIREMON Integrated, which in itself is an amalgam of acronyms. The FFI is a synthesis and expansion of two previous fire ecology monitoring systems, one from the US NPS (Fire Ecology Assessment Tool) and the other developed by the US Forest Service (Fire Effects Monitoring System). The progeny of these two parents is a place to enter, organise, store, query, compare, share and analyse ecological data, such as fire effects, monitoring or fire severity mapping or fuels plot data. You can look at the data spatially and query that data in a GIS. It is scalable so you can look at a project up to landscape level. The program comes pre-loaded with species lists and a range of sampling protocols, and it has the ability to be manipulated by the user to design any type of sampling protocol that may be required. A PDA or tablet can be used in the field to electronically capture data on pre-prepared forms that can be uploaded directly to the database. The program can be operated as stand alone, networked or as a linked online system to allow for data sharing. The latest version of FFI was nearing completion during my trip although the software will be developed over time as improvements as required and conceived of. The FFI is already in use by the National Park Service, US Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, US Fish and Wildlife Service, The Nature Conservancy, some state conservation agencies as well as other government users, so comparison between different agencies and land managers data is made possible. Catherine Mardell
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The FFI could provide a reasonable framework as a database for collecting and comparing ecological and fuels related data. An Australian system of fuel types and vegetation types would have to be developed for it to make sense. Given the convoluted genesis of this program it may be better to use elements of it to inform the development of a purpose built Australian system.
New Technology and Innovation At the Fire, Fuel and Smoke Science Program of the Rocky Mountain Research Station at the Fire Sciences Laboratory existing and emerging technologies are explored to find new and innovative ways to measure and collect data. One such application of existing technology was a device (NIR/Red CropCircle(TM) sensor) used in agriculture to assess the green of vegetation to map crop vigour,
was successfully used to measure grass curing. Another example of applying existing technologies to novel uses included a fish eye lens used on to a compact digital camera to take two panoramic photos that could be stitched together to make an interactive 360 degree photo that could be used instead of a traditional photo or stereo photo pairs for assessing fuel beds. Exploration of existing technologies for application to fuels data collection is a excellent idea and deserves further investigation. Laser Measurement I visited the University of Montana in Missoula where one project was looking at the measurement of fuel bed properties beneath closecanopies using laser altimetry.
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An aerial laser scan (airborne LiDAR – light detection and ranging) of an area is taken which shows up the spacing of the trees across a landscape. Then live trees are scanned on the ground with laser to try to extrapolate an average fuel mass for trees of a particular size class. Using the aerial laser scan coupled with the ground scanning they are working to estimate the amount of biomass in a forest unit. They hope to develop a baseline validation project that will be able to accurately characterize fuels spatially as well as estimate carbon and assess habitat. The type of laser scanning is very expensive given the specialist laser equipment, and aerial application and one must be specially trained to undertake this type of fuels assessment.
Post burn monitoring and fuel and vegetation matching in Canada In the three days I had at Banff National Park I went out into the field where fire managers from Parks Canada were conducting post burn monitoring, eight years after a prescribed fire to ascertain if the objectives set for the burn had been met. 160 sites were sampled across 5,000 hectares where the burning regime aimed to return forests to an open woodland type and re create habitat for large ungulates and bears. Different methods of ignition were trialed and the monitoring was providing feedback on the methods used as well as the success of the burning program. The post burn monitoring was detailed but only sampled data that was to be used to answer the questions posed by the monitoring. At Lake Louise a Canadian Forest Fire Danger Rating System fuel map for Kootenay and Yoho National Parks was in production by Parks Canada. The project used aerial photography for the study areas and Catherine Mardell
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applied a vegetation layer (Vegetation Resource Inventory) in a GIS. The vegetation types were then matched to the Canadian system of 16 fuel types. The next step was to ground truth the maps to make sure the desktop portion of the study is validated. It is an ongoing project.
Wildland Fire Decision Support System The Wildland Fire Decision Support System (WFDSS) assists fire managers and analysts in making strategic and tactical decisions for fire incidents. It combined and improved a set of programs previously used to manage wildfire in the US and introduces economic principles into the fire decision process. WFDSS also combines desktop applications for fire modeling into a web-based system that uses data from outside the program including fuel moisture data collected from RAWS stations. The prediction component of WFDSS is based on the 40 fuel models as developed by Scott and Burgan, discussed earlier in this report. The architecture of the system, and the mode of development makes further significant development of individual components almost impossible without rewriting the entire system. Consequently, parts of the software system can no longer be further significantly altered or developed.
Schools Education A learning activity for children from the "FireWorks" program developed at the Missoula Fire Lab together with Blackfeet Community College about traditional fire management and ecological knowledge.
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The program aimed to show children how important fire was to the indigenous Americans and how they carried fire through the landscape and to educate children about historical fire regimes and the requirements of forest to maintain health.
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Summary of Key Findings The US has a range of methods and protocols for collecting fire fuel data, although no single system has been adopted across the country as a standard approach. The level of detail varies widely between methods used to collect fuel data and the between standard operating procedures of fire agencies in relation to collecting that data. Land units that are contiguous and are managed by different agencies use dissimilar methods of fuel assessment for the same legislative requirements, resulting in materially variant outputs for example, in reporting expected pollution emissions for hazard reduction burning. Anecdotally, US operational fire management personnel are most focused on fuel moisture statistics and significant effort is expended collecting fuel moisture data including manually and automatically. Fuel moisture statistics are most often used to schedule for planned fire. Fuel moisture data collected all over the country is warehoused and analysed centrally by the peak fire management group and is used to predict fire potential. The increase in the number of US fuel models and fuel characterisation systems over the past 20 years from 10 to over 40 models appears to have been confusing to fire managers who may be resistant to learning new methods of quantifying fuels as alternate methods emerge. If fuel models are used, often preference is given to simple or familiar methods that have been in common use.
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Some management units of agencies invest a material proportion of budget to collecting and storing extraordinarily detailed fuels data and may only utilise and analyse a small percentage of the data collected. Some specialist teams employed to collect fuels data do not analyse or report on anything other than the raw data. Information alone is not intelligence and sense needs to be made of the data. Competition may exist within and between agencies that produce fuel measurement related products, to the extent that co-operation, coordination and collaboration between researchers is atypical. This has resulted in many of the products being developed along the lines of a free market economy (where not all companies are expected to thrive and survive). A widely used and well accepted US software system for fire management contains fire behaviour modeling and fuels assessment components and has been developed as a comprehensive fire management system including such functions as financial management, decision documentation, supports analysis as well as allowing for the completion of an operation plan. The architecture of the system, and the mode of development makes further significant development of individual components almost impossible without rewriting the entire system. Consequently, parts of the software system can no longer be significantly altered or developed. US purpose built systems for measuring fuels and manipulating the data into fire behavior models are not readily translatable to Australian conditions and environments without significant effort to adjust algorithms within the systems to take account of material differences in fuel structure and fire behaviour models. The principles and the methods however, of measuring fuel structure and conditions Catherine Mardell
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can be applied universally.
Recommendations Develop a standard dynamic Australian system and framework to prescribe and manage the description of fuels and vegetation in Australia. The scheme could be modeled on the procedural doctrine approach taken by the Australasian Inter-service Incident Management System (AIIMS) to allow a seamless integration between the states and fire management agencies and their approaches and methods of describing fuels and vegetation. The system must be flexible, dynamic and open ended so as not to stymie innovation or prevent development. Define a set of Australian fuel types and agree on a standard nomenclature to describe the characteristics of fire fuel. Comprehensively list and characterise the known methods of fire fuel assessment and the situations for which they are used and recommended. Identify gaps that exist and facilitate the development of methods to suit. Validate models to improve their reliability. Develop measured fuel accumulation curves for the range of vegetation types in Australia and for different weather patterns, for example for La Nina and El Nino weather patterns. Prioritise the development of such fuel accumulation curves based starting at the most fire prone vegetation types. Use destructive sampling to arrive at average accumulation rates. Validate, improve and expand existing visual guides for fuel assessment by collecting data from destructive sampling to
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measure fuel loadings for Australian vegetation types, arranged regionally across the country. Agree on a standard set of vegetation classes across the country and correlate local, regional, state and agency-based systems to the Australian system. The broad categories in the Australian system describe more general vegetation classes and become more a more detailed schema as it drills down to the states and agency goal specific requirements. Maintain a matrix of fire behaviour models and correlate the vegetation types and fuel types. Examine where there are gaps in the existing models and prioritise research to develop required models and to improve the performance of existing models. Prioritise models that need to be validated. Develop an ecological database to store and warehouse fuels and vegetation information collected across the country. The database allows for the collection and collation of ecological data according to standard protocols and may include such data as native and non-native vegetation, fauna records, wild and planned fire mapping including parameters such as extent and intensity. Develop a method for private landholders to use to quantify their own fuels and help them time treatments around land management objectives. Standardise methods of collecting fuel moisture data to contribute to Australian wide fuel moisture hazard maps, by fuel type.
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Prepare upcoming generations for climate driven expected changes in fire intensity and frequency by developing a primary school education curricula to give Australian children a basic understanding of fire fuel management, fire behaviour and fire survival. Develop a program of professional exchanges between countries such as the US and Australia to share knowledge and ideas on fuels management and measurement and to further advance systems that are under development. Develop a national competency for understanding fire behaviour and basic fire behaviour prediction including fuel assessment for all fire fighters. Develop a program that examines existing and emerging technologies and sharing the ideas. Share ideas on fire fuel and related fire management issues such as successes and lessons via an open virtual portal on the internet. Investment in and co-ordination of an Australian wide system of automated collection of weather, soil moisture and fuel moisture data.
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Acknowledgements Thank you to the Churchill Trust for accepting and supporting my project and for the funding to undertake my Churchill Study Tour. The Trust staff were always helpful, courteous, and enlightening. Thank you to all the people I met in America and Canada and for their friendship, generosity and hospitality in sharing their time, knowledge and expertise in fuel and fire management. Thank you to Eric Claussen for his unwavering support, advice and assistance with every aspect of this study tour and report. Thank you to Bob Conroy, Acting Head of the New South Wales National Parks and Wildlife Service for his encouragement of the concept of an Australian Fuels Project, sponsorship of this project and his ongoing professional support. Thank you to my other project sponsor, Greg Croft, retired Regional Manager for the NPWS, who generously supported my project application and always provided me with enormous encouragement.
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Bibliography Fire and Environmental Research Applications Team, US Forest Service (2010) Suite of Fire and Fuel Management Tools Pacific Wildland Fire Sciences Laboratory, Seattle, Washington. Gould J S, McCaw W L, Cheney N P, Ellis, P L, Knight I K, Sullivan A L (2007) Project Vesta - Fire in Dry Eucalypt Forest: Fuel structure, fuel dynamics and fire behavior. Ensis-CSIRO Canberra ACT and Department of Environment and Conservation, Perth WA. Holly, V J, Keane R E A (2010) Visual Training Tool for the Photoload Sampling Technique, USDA Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station, Missoula Montana Hines F, Tolhurst K G, Wilson A A G, McCarthy G J Overall auel sssessment guide, Report no 82 Department of Sustainability and Environment, Melbourne VIC Keane RE and L J Dickinson (2007) Development and Evaluation of the Photoload Sampling Technique USDA US Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station, Missoula Montana McKenzie D, Raymond C L, Kellog L K B, Norheim, R, Andreu, A G, Bayard A C, Kopper, K E, Elman E (2007) Mapping fuels at multiple scales: landscape application of the Fuel Characteristic Classification System The Canadian Journal of Forest Research 37: 2421-2437 Ottmar, R D and Safford H (2011) FCCS Fuelbeds for the Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit, FERA USFS Seattle, Washington Pyne, S. J., P. L. Andrews, and R. D. Laven. 1996. Introduction to Wildland Fire. Wiley, New York. Catherine Mardell
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Riccardi, C L, Ottmar, R, Sandburg, D V, Andreau, A, Elman, E, Kopper, K, Long J (2007) The fuelbed: a key element of the Fuel Characteristic Classification System The Canadian Journal of Forest Research 37: 2394-2412 Riccardi, C L, Pritchard S J, Sandberg D V, Ottmar R (2007) Quantifying physical characteristics of wildland fuels using the Fuel Characteristic Classification System The Canadian Journal of Forest Research 37: 2413-2420 Sandburg, D V, Riccardi, C L, Schaaf, M D, (2007) Reformulation of Rothermel’s wildland fire behaviour model for heterogeneous fuelbeds The Canadian Journal of Forest Research 37: 2438-2455 Scott, Joe H.; Burgan, Robert E. 2005. Standard fire behavior fuel models: a comprehensive set for use with Rothermel’s surface fire spread model. Gen. Tech. Rep. RMRS-GTR-153. Fort Collins, CO: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station. 72 p. Stephens, S L, Potts J B (2009) Invasive and native plant responses to shrubland fuel reduction: comparing prescribed fire, mastication, and treatment season Biological Conservation 142: 1657–1664 USDI National Park Service (2003) Fire Monitoring Handbook, Boise ID, Fire Management Program Center, National Interagency Fire Center
USDA Forest Service (2011) Fuelbed Pathways Handbook, Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit, FCCS Fuel Beds, Lake Tahoe Basin Management Unit. Catherine Mardell
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USDA Forest Service (2009) Fuel Characteristics Classification System (FCCS) User’s Guide USDA Forest Service (2009) Fuel Characteristics Classification System (FCCS) Field Sampling Guide USDI National Park Service (2003) Fire Monitoring Handbook. Boise Idaho: Fire Management Program Center. Watson, P (2009) Understanding bushfire fuels. A report for the NSW Rural Fire Service. Centre of Environmental Risk Management of Bushfires, University of Wollongong.
Catherine Mardell
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