Canadian Forest Service Publications
Relative importance of fuel management, ignition management and weather for area burned: evidence from five landscape - fire - succession models. 2009. Cary, G.J.; Flannigan, M.D.; Keane, R.E.; Bradstock, R.A.; Davies, I.D.; Lenihan, J.M.; Li, Chao; Logan, K.A.; Parsons, R.A. International Journal of Wildland Fire 18: 147-156.
Available from: Great Lakes Forestry Centre
Catalog ID: 29444
CFS Availability: PDF (request by e-mail)
Available from the Journal's Web site. †
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The behaviour of five landscape fire models (CAFÉ ,FIRESCAPE, LMOS(HS), LANDSUM and SEMLAND) was compared in a standardized modelling experiment. The importance of fuel management approach, fuel management effort, ignition management effort and weather in determining variation in area burned and number of edge pixels burned (a measure of potential impact on assests adjacent to fire-prone landscapes) was quantified for a standardized modelling landscape. Importance was measured as the proportion of variation in area or edge pixels burned explained by each factor and all interactions among them. Weather and ignition managment were consistently more important for explaining variation in area burned than fuel managment approach and effort, which were found to be statistically unimportant. for the number of edge pixels burned, weather and ignition manangement were generally more important than fuel managment approach and effort. Increased ignition management effort resulted in decreased area burned in all models and decreased number of edge pizels burned in three models. The findings demonstrate that year-to-year variation in weather and the success of ignition managment consistently prevail over the effects of fuel managment on area burned in a range of modelled ecosystems.
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