Rocky Mountain Research Station

Title: Spatial scaling of wildland fuels for six forest and rangeland ecosystems of the northern Rocky Mountains, USA

Author: Keane, Robert E.; Gray, Kathy; Bacciu, Valentina; Leirfallom, Signe

Date: 2012

Source: Landscape Ecology. 27: 1213-1234.

Description: Wildland fuels are important to fire managers because they can be manipulated to achieve management goals, such as restoring ecosystems, decreasing fire intensity, minimizing plant mortality, and reducing erosion. However, it is difficult to accurately measure, describe, and map wildland fuels because of the great variability of wildland fuelbed properties over space and time. Few have quantified the scale of this variability across space to understand its effect on fire spread, burning intensity, and ecological effects. This study investigated the spatial variability of loading (biomass) across major surface and canopy fuel components in low elevation northern Rocky Mountain forest and rangeland ecosystems to determine the inherent scale of surface fuel and canopy fuel distributions.

Keywords: wildland fire, spatial variability, biomass, canopy fuel, woody debris, fuel loading, scale

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Citation

Keane, Robert E.; Gray, Kathy; Bacciu, Valentina; Leirfallom, Signe  2012.  Spatial scaling of wildland fuels for six forest and rangeland ecosystems of the northern Rocky Mountains, USA.   Landscape Ecology. 27: 1213-1234..