Dr Susan Prichard is a research scientist and the Manager of the Fuel Characteristic Classification System (FCCS), and works from the village of Winthrop, Washington, for the US Forest Service, Fire and Environmental Research Applications (FERA) Team through the University of Washington. Susan oversees the development of improvements and enhancements to the FCCS, supervises the programmer and works with the scientist and mathematician who develops and adapts the equations that run data analysis within the system.
I spent some time discussing the way the FCCS works with Susan and Lucrecia Pettinari and if it could be adapted for different uses and for places elsewhere in the world.
Lucrecia Pettinari is a doctoral student from the Department of Geography, University of Acala in Madrid, Spain who is spending two months with the FERA team developing fuelbeds for the Fuel Characteristic Classification System (FCCS) in her project to map fire hazard at a global scale. An amazing project!
 |
| Me and Lucrecia Pettinari from Argentina in the Cascades |
On our second day in Winthrop we went out in to the Okanogan National Forest and toured the margins of 2006 Tripod Complex Fires (80,000ha) where Susan had done some opportunistic research, post wildfire, to determine which fuel treatments may mitigate fire severity. Susan decided to do the research after she noticed small areas inside the burn perimeter that had not burned during the wildfire, adjacent to expansive regions of high burn severity in the devastating Tripod fires. She concluded that mechanical thinning followed by surface fuel removal (by Rx burning) at lower elevations can be effective in mitigating wildfire severity in (US) dry mixed conifer forest. If you are interested to read more, Susan's paper is here.
 |
| When the trees are killed it is known as a stand replacement fire |
Thanks Dr Susan!
