Thank You!

Well, I have arrived home after a relaxing two weeks break in Alaska, catching up with writing and a little socialising with friends. The trip was an absolutely incredible experience: from the wonderfully knowledgeable and generous people I met, to the most astonishing natural wonders and the spectacular countryside I was fortunate enough to visit in the US and Canada.

I’d like to thank everyone who helped make this trip such a success for their efforts, especially those I met who gave me their valuable time to teach me about their part of the world when it comes to examining fire fuels. 

One observation I‘d like to make is that the itinerary turned out so remarkably well, completely by accident, serendipitously, if you will. At each place I learned things that were a primer for the next stop, and the journey built like a jigsaw, with each of the pieces of the puzzle being contributed by the people I spent time with.

I’d like to thank the Churchill Trust too, for placing their confidence in me to make a worthwhile expedition.  It was most instructive trip and I am confident I have developed some clear ideas to contribute, from a practitioner’s point of view, to an Australian approach to fuels.

Thanks go to Eric for his always unwavering support and assistance. Thanks to Glenda as my brilliant personal travel agent. Thanks to Doug for his hospitality and solicitude when I most needed it.

This week I am off to the Australiasian Fire and Emergency Service Authorities Council (AFAC) Conference in Sydney to learn about the latest about fire at home.

Then to finalise my report.

Watch this space! 

A black bear (not Smokey) in urban Anchorage!

Thank you especially to Scott, Alison, Chris, Phill, Alan, Dan, Chris, Tony, Karen, Christy, Windy, Eric, Li, Christina, Linda, Wes, Scott, Celeste, Ed, Bucky, Corey, Dianne, Ron, Roger, Bob, Lucrecia, Jon, Susan, Doug, Tom, Ross, Dick, Jeremy, Nate, Rich, Bill, Deb, Jim, Matt, Duncan, Pam, Jane, Faith Anne, LeWen, Carl, Eric, Rob, Dave and Jane. 

Fuel Management in the World's Third Oldest National Park

In Canada's beautiful Banff National Park I first met up with Robert Osiowy, Project Co-ordinator for the Mountain Parks Fire Restoration Project.  Rob is currently doing his Master's thesis on fuel loadings in Riparian areas in Banff National Park. Together we headed out with Dave Verhulst, the Fire Communications Officer to collect some data from one of his plots.

As with much of the continent of North America, Canada has moved from a suppression driven fire regime to one that is focussed on re-introducing fire into forests to maintain their health. The negative impacts of the removal of fire from the landscape, that had been regularly fired by the Native Americans prior to European settlement, include; intense wildfires through long unburnt fuels resulting in forest mortality (stand replacement) and the ensuing damaging erosion; an ongoing change in forest types, for example, from more open grassy woodlands to closed dense forests; as well as changes in the fauna assemblages such as an increase in the elk population in the park which has led to the decline of aspen species through over browsing. The program of reintroduction of prescribed fire (more frequent low to moderate intensity fire) is designed to help in reducing the intensity of wildfires to help to ameliorate the negative impacts of infrequent fire and to maintain or increase the biodiversity of the park, through manipulating habitats.  

Rob’s study is looking at the fuel loading in the riparian areas that also happen to coincide with the areas of greatest habitation, particularly around the township of Banff. Treatment options are limited given the narrow window for treatment of wetter environments as well as the difficulty of managing fire in the urban wildland interface.

Rob and Dave at one of the riparian fuel plots

pine canopy

apparently the mozzies weren't too bad this day!

the stick measurer for the Browns transect

working the Brown's transect

the riparian environment

The next day I spent with Jane Park, Fire & Vegetation Specialist and her offsider Nick Woode in Douglas Fire Plots on the Fairholme Benchlands in Banff National Park. At this site they are surveying to assess if the objectives of a prescribed fire program, conducted 8 years ago, has been achieved. Upward of 160 plots are being surveyed across 5,000 ha of some of the last tracts of intact montane forests in Banff NP. The objective of the prescribed burning is to conserve the old growth Douglas fir trees, including some of the oldest specimens in Alberta, at around 700 years old, by removing the Lodgepole pine trees that have in-filled the forest, and return it to an open woodland/grassland, particularly to provide habitat for grizzly bears and ungulates. A range of ignition techniques were trialled to see what would work best to achieve the prescription.

Mt Rundle from the Fairholme Benchlands

measuring the Douglas Fir

a core is taken from 10 dead trees around the plot to analyse later in the office to ascertain if their death was related to the prescribed burning 

one of the cores

assessing charring

a new Douglas Fir

one of the old growth Douglas Firs

this fire management regime is no longer current

Prior to coming to work at Banff National Park earlier this year, Jane had been working at Lake Louise where she was involved in producing a Canadian Forest Fire Danger Rating System fuel map for Kootenay and Yoho National Parks. To begin, aerial photography was commissioned for the study areas that had a vegetation layer (Vegetation Resource Inventory) applied in a GIS. The vegetation types were then matched to the Canadian system of 16 fuel types. The next step is to ground truth the maps to make sure the desktop portion of the study is validated. It is an ongoing project.

Thanks Rob, Dave, Jane and Nick!

Where Ideas Take Flight

I visited the University of Montana in Missoula to briefly catch up with Carl Seielstad, Associate Research Professor and Fire/Fuels Program Manager, National Center for Landscape Fire Analysis and Eric Rowell, an Image Programmer/Remote Sensing Analyst who are working on, among other projects, the measurement of fuel bed properties beneath close-canopies using laser altimetry.

My understanding of this project is that an aerial laser scan (airborne LiDAR – light detection and ranging) of an area is taken which shows up the spacing of the trees across a landscape. They then scanned live trees on the ground with laser to try to extrapolate an average fuel mass for trees of a particular size class. Using the aerial laser scan coupled with the ground scanning they are working to estimate the amount of biomass in a forest unit. They hope to develop a baseline validation project that will be able to accurately characterize fuels spatially as well as estimate carbon and assess habitat.

using laser to assess the biomass of trees

each red spot is the bole of a tree (collected using LiDAR)

Back at the Fire Sciences Lab I had a moment to talk in the library with Jane Kapler Smith, Ecologist and she showed me a learning activity for children from the "FireWorks" program developed at the Fire Lab together with Blackfeet Community College about traditional ecological knowledge.

Jane showed me a fire carrier that were used by the native people, the Pikunii, to carry live coals of fire from the old camp to the new camp. They were practical, in order to make a fire in the new camp, but also had a cultural purpose - so the people would have continuity from one place to another using the same fire that had been used for many years.

The Pikunii made fire carriers from a buffalo horn that was filled with pieces of specific kinds of wood and other materials, arranged very carefully so the coals would smoulder slowly on the journey between camps. The horn had small slits in the sides to allow oxygen in so the live coals would stay alive. Fire carriers were covered on the outside with a combination of sand and dirt, mixed with homemade glue. This insulating mixture was pasted on the outside of the horn and dried for several days before the carrier was used. After a live coal was placed inside and a few final pieces of wood were placed on top, the carrier was covered with a rawhide-wrapped stone or piece of wood, which was tied on tight with strips of leather.

inside the horn - red bead represents the fire

a cross section of the fire carrier

In the Fire Modelling Institute at the Fire Sciences Laboratory I spent time with Duncan Lutes, a Fire Ecologist at the Fire Lab in Missoula who has been working with Nate Benson from the National Park Service from the National Interagency Fire Center in Boise and others on developing a monitoring tool called FFI (FEAT/FIREMON Integrated) to assist managers with the collection, storage and analysis of ecological monitoring data.  FFI is a synthesis and expansion of two previous fire ecology monitoring systems, one from the US NPS and the other developed by the US Forest Service. The progeny of these two parents basically is a place to enter, store and analyse ecological data, such as fire effects monitoring or fire severity mapping or fuels plot data. In the program you can organise the data, query it, analyse it, share it and compare it. You can look at the data spatially and query data in the GIS. It is scalable so you can look at project to landscape level.

The program comes pre-loaded with species lists and a range of sampling protocols, however it has the ability to be manipulated by the user to design any type of sampling protocol that may be required. A PDA or tablet can be used in the field to electronically capture data on pre-prepared forms that can be uploaded directly to the database. The program can be operated as stand alone, networked or as a linked online system to allow for data sharing. The latest version of FFI is nearing completion although the software will be developed over time as improvements as required and conceived of.

The FFI is already in use by the National Park Service, US Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, US Fish and Wildlife Service, The Nature Conservancy, some state conservation agencies as well as other government users, so comparison between different agencies and land managers is possible.




Where ideas take flight? Well, it could be said of every agency and institution I have visited on this tour, however I found that little gem on the College of Forestry and Conservation, University of Montana’s web page.

a print by Missoula artist Monte Dolack hanging in the hall of the Fire Sciences Lab

Thanks to all at the people I met at the Missoula Fire Lab including, Duncan, Pam, Jane, Faith Ann, LaWen and to Carl and Eric at the University of Montana!

Exploring the Rocky Mountain Research Station

Jim Reardon from the US Forest Service, Missoula Rocky Mountain Research Station's Fire, Fuel and Smoke Program took me on a tour of the Fire Lab. Here are a few things I discovered...

the objectives of the Fire Modelling Institute at the Fire Lab

designing an apparatus for an experiment

and here it is

this was the control panel for the combustion lab

now this is the control panel for the combustion lab

inside the combustion lab

Simulating an upslope forest fire in the combustion lab

this is what they use to simulate pine needles

the straw is wrapped around metal stakes to simulate the trees

this is where Dick Rothermel came up with his fire behaviour model

I was lucky enough to see the combustion lab in action with Matt Jolly, Ecologist who is currently working on linking photosynthesis and combustion characteristics in live fuels.

Curiosity, Pride, Honesty, Respect

In Missoula, Montana, I met up with Jim Reardon, Forester, (soil scientist and inventor) with the Fire, Fuel and Smoke Science Program of the Rocky Mountain Research Station at the Fire Sciences Laboratory.

We spent much of the first day chatting about Jim’s myriad projects including one on the smoldering potentials of peat soils (or ‘muck’ as he calls it) in the wetlands of the Great Dismal Swamp of North Carolina.  Jim worked as part of a team looking at the efficacy of using the Keetch-Byram Drought Index as well as other traditionally used indicators to predict wildfire behaviour and for timing prescribed burning. He found that deep organic soils, as well as live and dead fuels, although damp, can sustain combustion at higher fuel moistures than expected in this environment. Through the research they were able to open up the potential for burning days by applying locally collected fuels data to inform when Rx fire was possible.

I learnt so much about soils and fire from Jim – for one, soils that contain significant amounts of recalcitrant carbon compounds are resistant to decomposition by soil organisms.We talked about those below ground processes that we forget about, but are so sensitive to change. Work was done by scientists in eastern Oregon which showed that the changes in cover type from forest to grassland after logging was accompanied by changes in the below ground food web. As a result, trees had difficulty re-establishing in the area cause the mycorrhizal association that favoured tree species was replaced by mycorrhiza that favoured grass species. Without the critical help of these below ground organisms the trees found it tough to come back.

Jim also worked on measuring soil heating during crown fires and prescribed burning. Measurements taken during the crown fire modelling experiment conducted in the North West Territory, Canada consistently showed little soil heating resulting from these intense events.It is fascinating research that questions the efficacy of the concept of using fire to sterilize weed seeds in the soil.

I especially enjoyed talking with Jim about his inventions and how he applies existing and emerging technology to find new and innovative ways to measure and collect data including remotely. He was part of a team of scientists and engineers that developed a duff moisture meter that was produced commercially by Campbell Scientific and he made a prototype backpack that carries a laser that spirals around and measures fuels as you walk along. He showed me how he simply screwed a fish eye lens on to a compact digital camera to take two panoramic photos that can be stitched together to make an interactive 360 degree photo that could be used instead of a traditional photo or stereo photo pairs for assessing fuel beds.

the fuel laser measuring backback prototype

this one measures grass curing very accurately by measuring the 'green' in the grass

Jim also showed me his Estimated Smoldering Potential Array (ESPA), a device he invented – similar to the Remote Area Weather Station that remotely measures soil moisture, water table depth, precipitation and lightning with the data being sent by SIM card to an internet site where the user can decide how often and by what means the data is delivered.

Estimated Smoldering Potential Array - the box that collects the data and send it

Jim out in the field with another different type of remote data collection array

Oh, and what about curiosity, pride, honesty and respect? Well those words were up on the wall in the fire lab’s conference room. I thought they were admirable qualities for a fire science institution to aspire to, so I thought I’d share them with you.


Thanks Jim!

NIFC continued...

For the remainder of my visit to the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) and while in Boise I was generously hosted by Dick Bahr, the Lead for the Fire Science & Ecology Program in the National Park Service (NPS), Branch of Wildland Fire.

Dick introduced me to Jeremy Sullens from Predictive Services. Jeremy told me about the National Fire Danger Rating System, which is based on the fuel moisture data collected from the Remote Area Weather Stations (RAWS), and other factors such as topography, weather and other risk factors from all around the country. The fire danger rating arbitrarily applies one fuel model across the country so that a numeric scaling of fire potential can be calculated. The fire danger rating outputs include; the potential of a fire initiating that is assumed to spread through continuous fuels on a uniform slope; assesses the likelihood of fire containment, in “near worst case” conditions at exposed locations at the peak of the normal burning period.    

Everyday a fire danger rating is calculated and broadcast for anyone who is interested. Firefighters are trained to understand the fire danger rating as well as being given a pocket card that helps them to decipher the daily rating for their own safety on the fireground. The rating is also an important business tool for fire managers to inform the level of preparedness for fire combat agencies, and where resources may be stationed at the ready.  

Jeremy also told me about a new concept he is developing to make comparisons between fire seasons. The comparison is based on the amount spent and the resources committed from year to year, rather than the area burned. He told me he didn’t believe that area burned was a very good way of comparing seasons, and that total percentage of resources committed would give a much better handle on the dimensions of the fire season.

Next I had a fascinating discussion with Nate Benson, the Fire Ecologist Program Leader for the NPS. We talked about the parks I had visited and the programs in place to measure fire effects, including the Fire Monitoring Handbook protocols. We discussed the fuels monitoring programs and how fire ecologists are encouraged to tailor data collection to meet their own specific needs and questions, and try not to just slavishly collect the fuels monitoring data according to the FMH.

Nate told me about how he has been involved in developing the

FFI (FEAT and Firemon Integrated), an ecological monitoring software application, which is an amalgam of two previous programs, that stores and analyses fire effects data and fuels and vegetation data. The FFI allows for flexibility in designing fuels and vegetation monitoring, although it incorporates a range of monitoring program designs as part of its architecture.  It has been under development for the last couple of years and the latest iteration is presently nearing completion.

We further talked about the Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity project that Eric Gdula and Windy Bunn showed us in Grand Canyon National Park. As well as taking account of monitoring burn severity there is a time component that looks at fire history and adds a layer for vegetation succession; mapping changes in species composition, fuel accumulation metrics as well as collecting data on invasive plants.  All the data is available online to anyone and the thresholds for level of detail that is mapped is dependant on the local level of interest. This spatial analysis helps to give an understanding of the mosaic of fire intensity and serves to guide planning for prescribed burning as well as recording how fire has moved across the landscape. The landsat imagery is an economic way of looking at the fire mosaic from recently burned, to burn severity and the magnitude of change after a fire. Fascinating stuff!

Finally I had a discussion with Rich Scwab about the Burned Area Emergency Response (BAER) Teams and their role in fire. Rich told me that the teams are made up of mainly “ologists”; biologists; geologists; zoologists; hydrologists, archaeologists and so on. Members of the team are not primarily firefighters so they don’t get caught up in the business of firefighting, but turn their attention to what needs to happen to rehabilitate an area after a fire. Before leaving on assignment the BAER team figures out the values at risk so they can take the right specialists to address those issues. Upon arrival at a site they triage the areas so they commence rehab on those places at highest risk and get to work quickly assessing the work that needs doing, as well as undertaking it, on the spot. It is like first aid for ecosystems damaged after fire and the jobs can range from arresting soil erosion to protect water catchments, or protecting vulnerable cultural sites from being damaged due to exposure. BAER Teams from the US came to Australia during the devastating 2009 Victorian Fires and the concept is being implemented in Victoria, the ACT and possibly NSW. Rich told me that the contact he has had with people from Australian fire agencies has been impressive and he felt that the system was being streamlined and there were great improvements and efficiencies being made in Australia, building on the US model.

Thanks to all at the NPS Fire Science and Ecology Program at NIFC including, Dick, Jeremy, Nate, Rich and to Bill Kaage and especially to Dick’s wife Deb, for her friendship and all the after hours fun!  

wine tasting on the weekend with Deb (and Dick) Bahr 

A trip to US Fire Management Central!

In Boise, Idaho I visited the National Interagency Fire Center (NIFC) where I spent my first day hosted by Doug Alexander, acting Chief, Fire Management Branch, of the US Fish and Wildlife Service. First up Doug arranged a meeting between me and Tom Zimmerman, the Wildland Fire Decision Support System (WFDSS) Program Manager.

Tom gave me a potted history of the genesis of WFDSS that I understood to be the result of an integration of a previous disparate set of fire management computer applications into a single system. The idea was to streamline the reporting and analysis processes, as well as taking advantage of advances in technology, fire modeling and geospatial analysis. The resulting web based program, the Wildland Fire Decision Support System, documents decisions, supports analysis as well as allowing for the completion of an operation plan.

Text and spatial information from land management and fire management plans is designed to be preloaded into WFDSS to assist in the development of fire analyses. Fire behavior modeling, fire spread probability, value assessment and cost estimation tools are incorporated into the system. The information is spatially oriented and graphically displayed reducing the need for text input.

Planning documents, spatial data and modelling information are easy to access and allow for risk-informed decision making that is both analytical and deliberative. The process is linear and does not require the use of alternative comparisons or the development of decision trees. Decision makers can follow a progressive decision process that can be scaled, adapted and is responsive to changes in the wildland fire environment. Through WFDSS, information is assembled, consolidated, processed, validated and shared among decision makers in a system designed to foster collaboration and improve strategic decision making during wildfires. The use of WFDSS is mandatory for all Federal Fire Agencies.

After the discussion with Tom I had an opportunity to see WFDSS demonstrated with the research and development team and ask questions about how it worked in practice and how fire managers used it during wildfire events.

Later Doug arranged an orientation tour for me of the National Interagency Fire Center campus that was conducted by Ross Babiak.

Outside the front gate at NIFC in Boise, Idaho

Outside the office is the Wildland Firefighters Monument (a garden) dedicated to
"Honoring wildland firefighters and the people who support them: past, present and future"

The National Interagency Co-ordination Center

the Smokejumpers Centre with the parachute drying tower on top

smokejumpers equipment

Smokejumpers have to carry up to 49kg!

each jumper repairs and packs up their own parachute

Ross Babiak, John Wallace, Doug Alexander and Becky Brooks in the Great Basin Fire Cache

used buoywalls awaiting returned to the fire cache

when returned to the cache every item is maintained, repaired if necessary, cleaned, repacked and stowed  

radio repair shop

Where the Remote Area Weather Stations (RAWS) are made and maintained 

Portable RAWS waiting to go out

Thanks Doug, Tom, the WFDSS Team and Ross!