Examples of how fire severity data have been and are currently being used
Fuels management
- Updating fuels layers. FARSITE canopy fuel layers are modified based upon fire effects by severity category. Surface fuel models are assigned based upon pre-fire fuel model and severity category.
- Calibration of FARSITE parameters. Weather and rate of spread parameters are adjusted to replicate crown and surface fire patterns that occurred in historical fires as portrayed by severity data. Those parameters are then used in FARSITE runs to predict whether planned fuels treatments will be effective.
- Analyze effectiveness of pre-fire fuels treatments. Examples include:
- The Cone fire which occurred at the Black’s Mountain Experimental Forest on the Lassen National Forest in 2002. The Cone fire showed changes in fire behavior and effects when it reached different treatments (e.g. thinning alone, thinning and burning).
- Rodeo and Chediski fires in Arizona during 2002. Treatments and previous fires reduced fire severity and in several cases, outside the units on the lee side because heading fire spread was diverted.
Tactical fire suppression planning
- Severity data have been used to build and validate crown fire and lethal surface fire risk models for determining the placement of fire fighter safety zones on the Salmon-Challis NF.
Post-fire assessments
- Severity data immediate post-fire, such as BARC data proved by RSAC to BAER teams, have been used for post-fire erosion/debris flow risk modeling.
Ecosystem / Landscape level monitoring
- Severity data from multiple fires across landscapes and over extended periods of time can be used to generate probability distribution curves that when used as predictive models indicate the likelihood of severity that will occur within a fire. These probability curves can be used to compare conceptual historic fire regimes by vegetation type to current fire regimes, evaluate effectiveness of management strategies such as wildland fire use (WFU), monitor trends over time.
EIS and NEPA planning
- Severity data from multiple fires across landscapes and over extended periods of time can be used as predictive models indicate the likelihood of severity that will occur within a fire. The distribution of fire severity by category (low, moderate, and high) in past prescribed fires have been used to predict effects in future prescribed fires for NEPA planning.
Wildlife habitat monitoring
- Severity data is being used by Yosemite NP to analyze how the spatial complexity of fire affects the CA spotted owl habitat utilization.
Potential additional management applications of fire severity data
Fuels management
- How do satellite derived severity data relate to variables that can be used to model first order fire effects, i.e. flame length, fire type, and mortality? How do severity data relate to changes in tree attributes such as crown base height, tree height, canopy cover, canopy bulk density, and quadratic mean diameter?
- Through continued monitoring past one year post-fire, can we develop models for predicting mortality due to second-order fire effects?
- Through extended monitoring with satellite data can we determine which post-fire treatments are effective for restoration?
- How is fire modifying fire regime condition class at the watershed level? How is the distribution of vegetation in each seral stage class within a watershed affected by a fire?
Ecosystem / Landscape level monitoring
- Where is high severity fire occurring? Is it in stands of large trees, i.e. old growth, or is it in young stands? What are the implications to the usage of suppression tactics and placement of fuels treatments?
- Has the distribution of severity by vegetation type changed over the time period that we can measure severity with Landsat (Landsat 5 launched in 1984)? If so, how does this change relate to changes in fuels, climate, etc?
Wildlife habitat evaluation and monitoring
- How do satellite derived severity data relate to habitat quality parameters?
- Provided we can model how severity affects habitat quality, can we predict whether/how sensitive species habitat quality will be affected by fuels treatments, or lack of treatments?
Risk management
- What does fire severity tell us about specific pre-fire fuels and climate conditions such as drought and insect outbreak? Do severity maps validate risk maps used for planning?
