Annual Progress Report
October 8, 2008
Building FCCS Fuelbeds for the Savannah River Site
By
Roger Ottmar, Anne Andreu, and Susan Prichard
In collaboration with Savannah River staff, the Fire and Environmental Research
Applications Team (FERA), Pacific Northwest Research Station is developing and
analyzing a matrix of FCCS fuelbeds and fire behavior predictions that represent the
range of current and anticipated surface fire behavior and crown fire potentials in each of
7 land cover and stand age types. This will require the creation of a stand-alone fuelbed
development tool (FDT) that is directly linked to the FCCS via a batch mode for use by
managers to easily and rapidly generate suites of fuelbeds that can be compared and used
to represent surface fire behavior breakpoints. Tasks completed during FY 08 for this
project include:
•
Completed day long presentation to R8 fire and fuel personnel on the FCCS and
fuelbed trials for the Fuels Analysis project for Savannah River.
•
Developed a set of draft fuelbeds for the 21 forest type were completed using
median values derived from the SRS inventory plot data and default values from
similar FCCS fuelbeds in cases where inventory data were lacking. The 21
fuelbeds were provided to the Savannah River Site in March 2008 following
internal review by the FERA team.
•
Completed the first version of the Fuelbed Development Tool (FDT) and made it
available in March 2008. The FDT was created in Access and allows users to
view and edit existing fuelbeds in batches. It also generates additional fuelbeds
based a selected “parent” fuelbed and specified ranges and increments of input
variables. Batches of fuelbeds can be generated in the FDT and run through the
FCCS batch mode. FCCS outputs can then be directly viewed and compared to
input variables in the FDT. Several of the 21 average fuelbeds were used to test
the FDT and to develop the gaming process to use in order to fill in the surface
fire behavior matrix for SRS. Final versions of the FDT and FCCS were available
in the August 2008.
•
All 21 fuelbeds were run through the fuelbed development tool to create extensive
testing sets of fuelbeds across the range of all surface fire behavior inputs. We are
currently in the process of selecting fuelbeds to include in the matrix for each
forest type – age class group. Manual changes are usually needed in these output
fuelbeds to combine FCCS input variables to create fuelbeds with higher surface
fire behavior or in order to ensure that the fuelbeds are ecologically realistic.
Because the FCCS batch mode currently does not support custom moisture
scenarios, the fuelbeds that are selected to include in the matrix are run through
FCCS manually and input into the matrix for SRS.
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To date, draft matrices for all forest type – age class groups have been completed
except for the Clearcut 0-5 years, Catastrophic 30-50 years, Catastrophic 50+
years, Cypress-tupelo 0-50 years and Cypress tupelo 50+ years. Drafts of these
matrices should be completed in the next week or two. All of the draft matrices
and matrix fuelbeds will need internal review by FERA team members and by the
SRS team to ensure that they are ecologically realistic and to determine if other
combinations of input variables should be tested.
As the draft matrices near completion, we will require additional input and review
from the SRS fire team. Dan Shea was contacted in order to get recommendations
from the SRS fire team regarding any additional volatile species that may occur
on the site that we haven’t included as volatile in the FCCS. In addition, Dan was
asked to review the data ranges for 5 forest type – age class groups that have
fewer than 5 plots and make suggestions on wider realistic ranges based on
personal experience on the site. He is meeting with his team and should be
reporting back to us soon. Testing the effects of any additional volatile species
will be needed in many of the matrix fuelbeds depending on his feedback. Also,
some additional gaming through the FDT and the manual editing process may be
necessary where the ranges of input variables are increased in the 5 forest type –
age class groups that had very few inventory plots.
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