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!

How Effective can Fuel Treatments be?

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!

Getting My Eye In - Assessing Fuels Visually

Bob Vihnanek is a forester who leads the research support team for the Fire and Environmental Research Applications Team at the US Forest Service, Pacific Wildland Fire Sciences Lab. His research interests are in fire effects, fire history, and quantification of biomass as fuel.

Bob has been working on producing the Natural Fuels Photo Series (NFPS) for the last 30 or more years with Roger Ottmar and others. The NFPS are a set of photos with the associated fuelbed characteristics data. The data is collected through destructive sampling so it represents the actual quantification of fuels, at the sites that were selected to represent each fuel type and condition being documented. At present there are 15 volumes in the NFPS that record and quantify fuels data across regions within the US, with one volume each from Brazil and Mexico. The NFPS volumes are presented in ring bound folders printed on special, tough, almost waterproof paper that was designed to be taken out, and used in the field.

Sites include standard, wide-angle and stereo-pair photos. The inventory data that accompanies the photos summarises vegetation composition, structure and loading; woody material loading; density by size class; forest floor depth and loading, and other site characteristics. One vegetation type may have as many as 17 or more fuelbeds described in different conditions, such as in different seasons, when fuels can be radically different at exactly the same site.

The NFPS has also been digitised and is available on the web in electronic form. The Digital Photo Series (DFS) database allows for searching, downloading, side by side comparisons and customised site generation.

Out in the Okanogan National Forest on our trip to Winthrop, Bob demonstrated the use of the NFPS. He showed us how to use the pictures in the NFPS and match to the fuelbed under scrutiny. Parts or strata of one fuelbed can be combined with another fuelbed to construct a more representative assessment of the site and its fuels. As with all visual guides, practise makes perfect!

Bob explaining the use of the NFPS to Lucrecia and me, Jon checking data in the background

The selected fuelled for the site we were surveying

This is a squirrel midden! It contains chewed up nuts and seeds and is considered a jackpot fuel!

Roger being a good sport and showing me the old man's beard lichen 

Thanks Bob & Roger!

Character Building with Fuels

In Seattle, Washington, I met up with Dr Roger Ottmar and Bob Vihnanek, part of the Fire and Environmental Research Applications Team at the Pacific Wildland Fire Sciences Lab, for the US Forest Service.

On our first day together Roger outlined the Fuel Characteristic Classification System (FCCS) and Bob showed us the Natural Photo Series that we explored in more detail later in the visit. The next day together with Lucrecia Pettinari, an intern at the fire lab for the summer from Argentina via Spain working on a global application for fire fuels using the FCCS, and Jon Dvorak who manages the field crew that collect field data for the Natural Photo Series, we took a trip to Winthrop through the beautiful North Cascades Range to meet up with Dr Susan Prichard, the FCCS Manager.

Lucrecia and me in the snow in summer!

Liberty Bell in the Cascades

Along the Cascades Scenic Highway

Jon, Roger, Lu (partly obscured) & Bob sightseeing in the North Cascades

I learnt that the FCCS is a nationally consistent system that has been developed in the Pacific Wildland Fire Lab to help fire managers characterize fuels (known as fuelbeds), along with classifying the fuels by their potential flammability and fire hazard.

What these guys refer to as fuelbeds – or the specific form and quantity of fuels that result from particular vegetation types; natural and human induced disturbances; and seasons, are compiled by the user in the FCCS to approximate their local fuels and are then characterized and quantified by the software and further used to predict their relative fire hazard. The FCCS is designed to examine and characterize all the fuels in the fuelbed, including fuel characteristics and structural complexity.

Roger explained that there are 3 parts to the FCCS - the preloaded fuelbeds and customized fuelbeds; secondly the calculation of the physical characteristics; and third the calculation of fuel potentials, fire behaviour prediction. The FCCS also can make a correlation to the Anderson and Scott & Burgen fuel models (to build in a comfort factor for managers who are used to using these fuel models).

The fuel beds are made up of 6 strata (including canopy, shrub, non-woody, woody, litter lichen & moss and ground fuels) that are further divided into sub categories. For example canopy fuels are divided into trees, snags (stags), and ladder fuels. Ground fuels are divided in to duff, squirrel middens (yes this is a fuel type in the northern hemisphere!) and basal accumulations.

The FCCS predicts surface fire behaviour, including reaction intensity (BTU) flame length (ft) and rate of spread (ft min). Another very important output from the FCCS is the Fire Potential that rates surface fire behaviour potential, crown fire potential and available fuel potential using an easy to understand numbered system that can be used to describe or map fuelbeds in terms of fire hazard.  Each potential is rated separately and three numbers simplifies fire potential so that it can be easily explained and understood by anyone including non fire managers.

The system also generates a carbon report.

In Winthrop I was able to learn more about the intricacies of the system from Susan Prichard who manages the system as well as overseeing its further development and refinement.
Roger told me the FCCS is to be field validated as an upcoming project. Exciting!

Thanks Dr Roger, Bob, Lucretia, Jon and Dr Susan!