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Author(s):
Robert E. Keane, Kathy L. Gray, Valentina Bacciu, Signe B. Leirfallom
Year Published:

Cataloging Information

Topic(s):
Fuels
Fuel Descriptions
Fuels Inventory & Monitoring
Ecosystem(s):
Montane dry mixed-conifer forest, Ponderosa pine woodland/savanna, Juniper woodland, Sagebrush steppe

NRFSN number: 8355
FRAMES RCS number: 13471
Record updated:

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.

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.

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