Linking 3D spatial models of fuels and fire: Effects of spatial heterogeneity on fire behavior

Crown fire endangers fire fighters and can have severe ecological consequences. Prediction of fire behavior in tree crowns is essential to informed decisions in fire management. Current methods used in fire management do not address variability in crown fuels. New mechanistic physics-based fire models address convective heat transfer with computational fluid dynamics (CFD) and can be used to model fire in heterogeneous crown fuels. However, the potential impacts of variability in crown fuels on fire behavior have not yet been explored. In this study we describe a new model, FUEL3D, which incorporates the pipe model theory (PMT) and a simple 3D recursive branching approach to model the distribution of fuel within individual tree crowns. FUEL3D uses forest inventory data as inputs, and stochastically retains geometric variability observed in field data. We investigate the effects of crown fuel heterogeneity on fire behavior with a CFD fire model by simulating fire under a homogeneous tree crown and a heterogeneous tree crown modeled with FUEL3D, using two different levels of surface fire intensity. Model output is used to estimate the probability of tree mortality, linking fire behavior and fire effects at the scale of an individual tree. We discovered that variability within a tree crown altered the timing, magnitude and dynamics of how fire burned through the crown; effects varied with surface fire intensity. In the lower surface fire intensity case, the heterogeneous tree crown barely ignited and would likely survive, while the homogeneous tree had nearly 80% fuel consumption and an order of magnitude difference in total net radiative heat transfer. In the higher surface fire intensity case, both cases burned readily. Differences for the homogeneous tree between the two surface fire intensity cases were minimal but were dramatic for the heterogeneous tree. These results suggest that heterogeneity within the crown causes more conditional, threshold-like interactions with fire. We conclude with discussion of implications for fire behavior modeling and fire ecology.     

Climatic Change, Wildfire, and Conservation

Abstract:  Climatic variability is a dominant factor affecting large wildfires in the western United States, an observation supported by palaeoecological data on charcoal in lake sediments and reconstructions from fire-scarred trees. Although current fire management focuses on fuel reductions to bring fuel loadings back to their historical ranges, at the regional scale extreme fire weather is still the dominant influence on area burned and fire severity. Current forecasting tools are limited to short-term predictions of fire weather, but increased understanding of large-scale oceanic and atmospheric patterns in the Pacific Ocean (e.g., El Niño Southern Oscillation, Pacific Decadal Oscillation) may improve our ability to predict climatic variability at seasonal to annual leads. Associations between these quasi-periodic patterns and fire occurrence, though evident in some regions, have been difficult to establish in others. Increased temperature in the future will likely extend fire seasons throughout the western United States, with more fires occurring earlier and later than is currently typical, and will increase the total area burned in some regions. If climatic change increases the amplitude and duration of extreme fire weather, we can expect significant changes in the distribution and abundance of dominant plant species in some ecosystems, which would thus affect habitat of some sensitive plant and animal species. Some species that are sensitive to fire may decline, whereas the distribution and abundance of species favored by fire may be enhanced. The effects of climatic change will partially depend on the extent to which resource management modifies vegetation structure and fuels.     

Hyperspectral and LiDAR remote sensing of fire fuels in Hawaii Volcanoes National Park.

Alien invasive grasses threaten to transform Hawaiian ecosystems through the alteration of ecosystem dynamics, especially the creation or intensification of a fire cycle. Across sub-montane ecosystems of Hawaii Volcanoes National Park on Hawaii Island, we quantified fine fuels and fire spread potential of invasive grasses using a combination of airborne hyperspectral and light detection and ranging (LiDAR) measurements. Across a gradient from forest to savanna to shrubland, automated mixture analysis of hyperspectral data provided spatially explicit fractional cover estimates of photosynthetic vegetation, non-photosynthetic vegetation, and bare substrate and shade. Small-footprint LiDAR provided measurements of vegetation height along this gradient of ecosystems. Through the fusion of hyperspectral and LiDAR data, a new fire fuel index (FFI) was developed to model the three-dimensional volume of grass fuels. Regionally, savanna ecosystems had the highest volumes of fire fuels, averaging 20% across the ecosystem and frequently filling all of the three-dimensional space represented by each image pixel. The forest and shrubland ecosystems had lower FFI values, averaging 4.4% and 8.4%, respectively. The results indicate that the fusion of hyperspectral and LiDAR remote sensing can provide unique information on the three-dimensional properties of ecosystems, their flammability, and the potential for fire spread.     

Modeling and risk assessment for soil temperatures beneath prescribed forest fires

Prescribed fire is a management tool used by wildland resource management organizations in many ecosystems to reduce hazardous fuels and to achieve a host of other objectives. To study the effects of fire in naturally accumulating fuel conditions, the ambient soil temperature is monitored beneath prescribed burns. In this study we developed a stochastic model for temperature profiles (values at 15 minute intervals) recorded at four depths beneath the soil during a large prescribed burn study. The model was used to assess the temporal fit of the data to particular solutions of the heat equation. We used a random effects model to assess the effects of observed site characteristics on maximum temperatures and to estimate risks of temperatures exceeding critical levels in future similar prescribed fires. Contour plots of estimated risks of temperatures exceeding 60°C for a range of fuel levels and soil depths indicated high risks of occurrence, especially when the moisture levels are low. However, the natural variability among sites seems to be large, even after controlling fuel and moisture levels, resulting in large standard errors of predicted risks.     

Corridors promote fire via connectivity and edge effects

Landscape corridors, strips of habitat that connect otherwise isolated habitat patches, are commonly employed during management of fragmented landscapes. To date, most reported effects of corridors have been positive; however, there are long-standing concerns that corridors may have unintended consequences. Here, we address concerns over whether corridors promote propagation of disturbances such as fire. We collected data during prescribed fires in the world's largest and best replicated corridor experiment (Savannah River Site, South Carolina, USA), six -50-ha landscapes of open (shrubby/herbaceous) habitat within a pine plantation matrix, to test several mechanisms for how corridors might influence fire. Corridors altered patterns of fire temperature through a direct connectivity effect and an indirect edge effect. The connectivity effect was independent of fuel levels and was consistent with a hypothesized wind-driven "bellows effect." Edges, a consequence of corridor implementation, elevated leaf litter (fuel) input from matrix pine trees, which in turn increased fire temperatures. We found no evidence for corridors or edges impacting patterns of fire spread: plots across all landscape positions burned with similar probability. Impacts of edges and connectivity on fire temperature led to changes in vegetation: hotter-burning plots supported higher bunch grass cover during the field season after burning, suggesting implications for woody/herbaceous species coexistence. To our knowledge, this represents the first experimental evidence that corridors can modify landscape-scale patterns of fire intensity. Corridor impacts on fire should be carefully considered during landscape management, both in the context of how corridors connect or break distributions of fuels and the desired role of fire as a disturbance, which may range from a management tool to an agent to be suppressed. In our focal ecosystem, longleaf pine woodland, corridors might provide a previously unrecognized benefit during prescribed burning activities, by promoting fire intensity, which may assist in promoting plant biodiversity.     

Fish Responses to Experimental Fragmentation of Seagrass Habitat

Abstract: Understanding the consequences of habitat fragmentation has come mostly from comparisons of patchy and continuous habitats. Because fragmentation is a process, it is most accurately studied by actively fragmenting large patches into multiple smaller patches. We fragmented artificial seagrass habitats and evaluated the impacts of fragmentation on fish abundance and species richness over time (1 day, 1 week, 1 month). Fish assemblages were compared among 4 treatments: control (single, continuous 9‐m² patches); fragmented (single, continuous 9‐m² patches fragmented to 4 discrete 1‐m² patches); prefragmented/patchy (4 discrete 1‐m² patches with the same arrangement as fragmented); and disturbance control (fragmented then immediately restored to continuous 9‐m² patches). Patchy seagrass had lower species richness than actively fragmented seagrass (up to 39% fewer species after 1 week), but species richness in fragmented treatments was similar to controls. Total fish abundance did not vary among treatments and therefore was unaffected by fragmentation, patchiness, or disturbance caused during fragmentation. Patterns in species richness and abundance were consistent 1 day, 1 week, and 1 month after fragmentation. The expected decrease in fish abundance from reduced total seagrass area in fragmented and patchy seagrass appeared to be offset by greater fish density per unit area of seagrass. If fish prefer to live at edges, then the effects of seagrass habitat loss on fish abundance may have been offset by the increase (25%) in seagrass perimeter in fragmented and patchy treatments. Possibly there is some threshold of seagrass patch connectivity below which fish abundances cannot be maintained. The immediate responses of fish to experimental habitat fragmentation provided insights beyond those possible from comparisons of continuous and historically patchy habitat.     

Simulating dynamic and mixed-severity fire regimes: A process-based fire extension for LANDIS-II

Fire regimes result from reciprocal interactions between vegetation and fire that may be further affected by other disturbances, including climate, landform, and terrain. In this paper, we describe fire and fuel extensions for the forest landscape simulation model, LANDIS-II, that allow dynamic interactions among fire, vegetation, climate, and landscape structure, and incorporate realistic fire characteristics (shapes, distributions, and effects) that can vary within and between fire events. We demonstrate the capabilities of the new extensions using two case study examples with very different ecosystem characteristics: a boreal forest system from central Labrador, Canada, and a mixed conifer system from the Sierra Nevada Mountains (California, USA). In Labrador, comparison between the more complex dynamic fire extension and a classic fire simulator based on a simple fire size distribution showed little difference in terms of mean fire rotation and potential severity, but cumulative burn patterns created by the dynamic fire extension were more heterogeneous due to feedback between fuel types and fire behavior. Simulations in the Sierra Nevada indicated that burn patterns were responsive to topographic features, fuel types, and an extreme weather scenario, although the magnitude of responses depended on elevation. In both study areas, simulated fire size and resulting fire rotation intervals were moderately sensitive to parameters controlling the curvilinear response between fire spread and weather, as well as to the assumptions underlying the correlation between weather conditions and fire duration. Potential fire severity was more variable within the Sierra Nevada landscape and also was more sensitive to the correlation between weather conditions and fire duration. The fire modeling approach described here should be applicable to questions related to climate change and disturbance interactions, particularly within locations characterized by steep topography, where temporally or spatially dynamic vegetation significantly influences spread rates, where fire severity is variable, and where multiple disturbance types of varying severities are common.     

Does pyrogenicity protect burning plants?

Pyrogenic plants dominate many fire-prone ecosystems. Their prevalence suggests some advantage to their enhanced flammability, but researchers have had difficulty tying pyrogenicity to individual-level advantages. Based on our review, we propose that enhanced flammability in fire-prone ecosystems should protect the belowground organs and nearby propagules of certain individual plants during fires. We base this hypothesis on five points: (1) organs and propagules by which many fire-adapted plants survive fires are vulnerable to elevated soil temperatures during fires; (2) the degree to which burning plant fuels heat the soil depends mainly on residence times of fires and on fuel location relative to the soil; (3) fires and fire effects are locally heterogeneous, meaning that individual plants can affect local soil heating via their fuels; (4) how a plant burns can thus affect its fitness; and (5) in many cases, natural selection in fire-prone habitats should therefore favor plants that burn rapidly and retain fuels off the ground. We predict an advantage of enhanced flammability for plants whose fuels influence local fire characteristics and whose regenerative tissues or propagules are affected by local variation in fires. Our "pyrogenicity as protection" hypothesis has the potential to apply to a range of life histories. We discuss implications for ecological and evolutionary theory and suggest considerations for testing the hypothesis.     

Constraints on global fire activity vary across a resource gradient

We provide an empirical, global test of the varying constraints hypothesis, which predicts systematic heterogeneity in the relative importance of biomass resources to burn and atmospheric conditions suitable to burning (weather/climate) across a spatial gradient of long-term resource availability. Analyses were based on relationships between monthly global wildfire activity, soil moisture, and mid-tropospheric circulation data from 2001 to 2007, synthesized across a gradient of long-term averages in resources (net primary productivity), annual temperature, and terrestrial biome. We demonstrate support for the varying constraints hypothesis, showing that, while key biophysical factors must coincide for wildfires to occur, the relative influence of resources to burn and moisture/weather conditions on fire activity shows predictable spatial patterns. In areas where resources are always available for burning during the fire season, such as subtropical/tropical biomes with mid-high annual long-term net primary productivity, fuel moisture conditions exert their strongest constraint on fire activity. In areas where resources are more limiting or variable, such as deserts, xeric shrublands, or grasslands/savannas, fuel moisture has a diminished constraint on wildfire, and metrics indicating availability of burnable fuels produced during the antecedent wet growing seasons reflect a more pronounced constraint on wildfire. This macro-scaled evidence for spatially varying constraints provides a synthesis with studies performed at local and regional scales, enhances our understanding of fire as a global process, and indicates how sensitivity to future changes in temperature and precipitation may differ across the world.     

Grass feedbacks on fire stabilize savannas

Savannas commonly consist of a discontinuous cover of overstory trees and a groundcover of grasses. Savanna models have previously demonstrated that vegetation feedbacks on fire frequency can limit the density of overstory trees, thereby maintaining savannas. Positive feedbacks of either savanna trees alone or trees and grasses together on fire frequency have been shown to result in a stable savanna equilibrium. Grass feedbacks on fire frequency, in contrast, have resulted in stable equilibria in either a grassland or forest state, but not in a savanna. These results, however, were derived from a system of differential equations that assumes that fire occurrence is strictly deterministic and that vegetation losses due to fire are continuous in time. We develop an alternative formulation of the grass-fire feedback model that assumes that fires are discrete and occur stochastically in time to examine the influence of these assumptions on the predicted state of the system. We show that incorporating fire as a discrete event can produce a recurring temporal refuge in which both grass and trees co-occur in a stable, bounded savanna. In our model, tree abundance is limited without invoking demographic bottlenecks in the transition from fire-sensitive to fire-resistant life history stages. An increasing strength of grass feedback on fire results in regular, predictable fires, which suggests that the system can also be modeled using a set of difference equations. We implement this discrete system using modified Leslie/Gower difference equations and demonstrate the existence of a bounded savanna state in this model framework. Our results confirm the potential for grass feedbacks to result in stable savannas, and indicate the importance of modeling fire as a discrete event rather than as a loss rate that is continuous in time.     

Fire shapes and the adequacy of fire-spread models

It has been suggested that shapes of burned areas resulting from fires spreading under uniform fuel and meteorological conditions may be described as ellipses, double ellipses, or ovoids. The adequacy of these shapes (together with simulation outputs) as bases for fire spread models was tested by finding the best fits of each shape to maps of experimental fires and comparing the results with fits given by a rectangle (an unlikely fire shape). Each of the models (ellipse, double ellipse, ovoid, simulation model, and even the rectangle) provided adequate approximations to the fire contours used in the tests. The parameter trends found implied that the fires examined tended to become more nearly elliptical in shape and to have higher eccentricity as they grew.     

Forest Restoration and Fire: Principles in the Context of Place

Abstract:  There is broad consensus that active management through thinning and fire is urgently needed in many forests of the western United States. This consensus stems from physically based models of fire behavior and substantial empirical evidence. But the types of thinning and fire and where they are applied are the subjects of much debate. We propose that low thinning is the most appropriate type of thinning practice. Treating surface fuels, reducing ladder fuels, and opening overstory canopies generally produce fire-safe forest conditions, but large, fire-resistant trees are also important components of fire-safe forests. The context of place is critical in assigning priority for the limited resources that will be available for restoration treatments. Historical low-severity fire regimes, because of their current high hazards and dominance by fire-resistant species, are the highest priority for treatment. Mixed-severity fire regimes are of intermediate priority, and high-severity fire regimes are of lowest priority. Classification systems based on potential vegetation will help identify these fire regimes at a local scale.     

A comparative study of particle size distribution from two oxygenated fuels and diesel fuel

Oxygenated fuels are known to reduce particulate matter (PM) emissions from diesel engines. In this study, 100% soy methyl ester (SME) biodiesel fuel (B100) and a blend of 10% acetal denoted by A-diesel with diesel fuel were tested as oxygenated fuels. Particle size and number distributions from a diesel engine fueled with oxygenated fuels and base diesel fuel were measured using an Electrical Low Pressure Impactor (ELPI). Measurements were made at ten steady-state operational modes of various loads at two engine speeds. It was found that the geometric mean diameters of particles from SME and Adiesel were lower than that from base diesel fuel. Compared to diesel fuel, SME emitted more ultra-fine particles at rated speed while emitting less ultra-fine particles at maximum speed. Ultra-fine particle number concentrations of A-diesel were much higher than those of base diesel fuel at most test modes.     

Green fuel production: processes applied to microalgae

The continuous increase in world energy demand will lead to an energy crisis due to the limited availability of fossil fuels. Furthermore, the use of this energetic resource is responsible for the accumulation of greenhouse gases in atmosphere that is associated with several negative effects on environment. Therefore, it is worth to search for different energy supplies that are renewable and environmentally friendly—carbon neutral fuel. Microalgae are photosynthetic microorganisms that can achieve high oil contents. This oil is suitable for producing biodiesel; thus, microalgae are considered a promising sustainable energetic resource that can reduce the dependence on fossil fuel. Biodiesel production from microalgae includes several steps, such as cell cultivation and harvesting, oil extraction and biodiesel synthesis. Although several attempts have been made to improve biodiesel yields from microalgae, further studies are required to improve biodiesel production rates and to reduce the associated costs. This review shows the recent developments on biodiesel production from microalgae, emphasizing two process concepts: (1) indirect route, in which, after a facultative cell wall disruption method, microalgal oil is recovered in an appropriate solvent and then converted into biodiesel through transesterification and (2) direct route, in which biodiesel is produced directly from the harvested biomass. High biodiesel yields are obtained when both routes are preceded by a cell wall disruption method. In the indirect route, it is possible to apply three different types of solvents to recover microalgal oil. Although there are several concerns about the application of organic solvents, the most promising and cost-effective alternative for lipid recovery is n-hexane. Comparing direct and indirect routes, this study demonstrates that although further studies are required to optimize biodiesel production from microalgae, the available information proposes that the direct route is the most efficient.     

A model of surface fire,climate and forest pattern in the Sierra Nevada,California

A spatially explicit forest gap model was developed for the Sierra Nevada, California, and is the first of its kind because it integrates climate, fire and forest pattern. The model simulates a forest stand as a grid of 15×15 m forest plots and simulates the growth of individual trees within each plot. Fuel inputs are generated from each individual tree according to tree size and species. Fuel moisture varies both temporally and spatially with the local site water balance and forest condition, thus linking climate with the fire regime. Fires occur as a function of the simulated fuel loads and fuel moisture, and the burnable area is simulated as a result of the spatially heterogeneous fuel bed conditions. We demonstrate the model’s ability to couple the fire regime to both climate and forest pattern. In addition, we use the model to investigate the importance of climate and forest pattern as controls on the fire regime. Comparison of model results with independent data indicate that the model performs well in several areas. Patterns of fuel accumulation, climatic control of fire frequency and the influence of fuel loads on the spatial extent of fires in the model are particularly well-supported by data. This model can be used to examine the complex interactions among climate, fire and forest pattern across a wide range of environmental conditions and vegetation types. Our results suggest that, in the Sierra Nevada, fuel moisture can exert an important control on fire frequency and this control is especially pronounced at sites where most of the annual precipitation is in the form of snow. Fuel loads, on the other hand, may limit the spatial extent of fire, especially at elevations below 1500 m. Above this elevation, fuel moisture may play an increasingly important role in limiting the area burned.     

Longleaf pine (Pinus palustris) and hardwood dynamics in a fire-maintained ecosystem: A simulation approach

Longleaf pine (Pinus palustris) savannas of the southeastern U.S. represent an archetype of a fire dependent ecosystem. They are known to have very short fire return intervals (∼1-3 years) that perpetuate understory plant diversity (up to 50 species m⁻²), support pine recruitment, and suppress fire sensitive hardwoods. Understanding the relationships that regulate longleaf and southern hardwoods is especially critical. With decreased fire frequency, insufficient intensity, or lack of underground competition, a woody mid-story rapidly develops, dominated by fire sensitive trees and shrubs that in-turn suppress more fire dependent species (including pine seedlings). This may occur in forest gaps, where pine-needle abundance is diminished, reducing fire spread potential. The interactions between longleaf pine, hardwoods, forest fuels, and fire frequency are complex and difficult to understand spatially. The objective of this study was to develop a spatially explicit longleaf pine-hardwood stochastic simulation model (LLM), incorporating tree demography, plant competition, and fuel and fire characteristics. Data from two longleaf pine study sites were used to develop and evaluate the model with the goal to incorporate simple site-specific calibration parameters for model versatility. Specific model components included pine seed masting, hardwood clonal sprouting, response to fire (re-sprouting, mortality), and tree density driven competition effects. LLM spatial outputs were consistent with observed forest gap dynamics associated with pine seedling establishment and hardwood encroachment. Changes in fire frequency (i.e., fire probability = 0.35-0.05) illustrated a shift in community structure from longleaf pine dominated to a hardwood dominated community. This approach to assessing model response may be useful in characterizing longleaf ecosystem resilience, especially at intermediate fire frequencies (e.g., 0.15) where the community may be sensitive to small changes in the fire regime. Height distributions and population densities were similar to in situ findings (field and LIDAR data) for both study sites. Height distributions output by the LLM illustrated fluctuations in population structure. The LLM was especially useful in determining knowledge gaps associated with fuel and fire heterogeneity, plant-plant interactions, population structure and its temporal fluctuations, and hardwood demography. This is the first known modeling work to simulate interactions between longleaf pine and hardwoods and provides a foundation for further studies on fire and forest management, especially in relation to ecological forestry practices, restoration, and site-specific applications.     

Small-scale fuel variation alters fire intensity and shrub abundance in a pine savanna

Small-scale variation in fire intensity and effects may be an important source of environmental heterogeneity in frequently burned plant communities. We hypothesized that variation in fire intensity resulting from local differences in fuel loads produces heterogeneity in pine savanna ground cover by altering shrub abundance. To test this hypothesis, we experimentally manipulated prefire fuel loads to mimic naturally occurring fuel-load heterogeneity associated with branch falls, needle fall near large pines, and animal disturbances in a frequently burned longleaf pine (Pinus palustris) savanna in Louisiana, USA. We applied one of four fuel treatments (unaltered control, fine-fuel removal, fine-fuel addition, wood addition) to each of 540 (1-m2) quadrats prior to growing-season prescribed fires in each of two years (1999 and 2001). In both years fuel addition increased (and fuel removal decreased) fuel consumption and maximum fire temperatures relative to unaltered controls. Fuel addition, particularly wood, increased damage to shrubs, increased shrub mortality, and decreased resprout density relative to controls. We propose that local variation in fire intensity may contribute to maintenance of high species diversity in pine savannas by reducing shrub abundance and creating openings in an otherwise continuous ground cover.     

Modeling the influence of precipitation and nitrogen deposition on forest understory fuel connectivity in Sierra Nevada mixed-conifer forest

Climate change models for California's Sierra Nevada predict greater inter-annual variability in precipitation over the next 50 years. These increases in precipitation variability coupled with increases in nitrogen deposition from fossil fuel consumption are likely to result in increased productivity levels and significant increases in forest understory fuel loads. Higher understory plant biomass contributes to fuel connectivity and may increase future fire size and severity in the Sierra Nevada. The objective of this research was to develop and test a model to determine how changing precipitation and nitrogen deposition levels affect shrub and herb biomass production, and to determine how often prescribed fire would be needed to counter increasing fuel loads. Model outputs indicate that under an increasing precipitation scenario significant increases in shrub and herb biomass occur that can be counteracted by decreasing the fire return interval to 10 years. Under a scenario with greater inter-annual variability in precipitation and increased nitrogen deposition, implementing fire treatments at an interval equivalent to the historical range of 15–30 years maintains understory vegetation fuel loads at levels comparable to the control.     

燃用甲醇燃料的发动机尾气排放

本文主要报导了在二冲程、四冲程汽油机及柴油机上燃用甲醇-汽油混合燃料、M_(100)甲醇燃料的发动机尾气排放方面所做的研究,并与燃用汽油、柴油的尾气排放进行了对照。结果表明,无论是甲醇-汽油混合燃料,还是M_(100)甲醇燃料尾气排放,都较汽油、柴油尾气排放的常规污染物,均有不同程度的减少。因此,应用甲醇燃料对改善环境是有益的。