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Project ID: 12-1-03-11

Year: 2012

Date Started: 06/15/2012

Ending Date:  06/15/2015

Title: Evaluation and Optimization of Fuel Treatment Effectiveness with an Integrated Experimental/Modeling Approach

Project Proposal Abstract: Our proposed research provides an opportunity to integrate proven, state-of-the-art, remote sensing methodologies with cutting edge numeric modeling of fire spread to test the principals and physics behind fuel reduction treatments. Many difficulties arise in adequately characterizing fuel reduction treatments solely through field experimentation. To overcome these limitations, we present a transferable approach that integrates Light Detection and Ranging (LiDAR) measurements of three-dimensional canopy structure and field consumption measurements with fire intensity and spread simulated with the Wildland-Urban Fire Dynamics Simulator (WFDS). The approach presented here: 1) characterizes three-dimensional fuel loading across a heterogeneous landscape and uses both a space-for-time and remeasurement approaches to characterize the physical changes that fuels treatments have on fuel structure and loading, 2) parameterizes WFDS using laboratory derived fuel property characteristics and evaluate the model at four operational prescribed burns in areas of contrasting fuel structure, and 3) integrates the treatment-dependant canopy structural characteristics derived from the LiDAR with WFDS simulations to evaluate realistic treatment scenarios over a wide range of fire weather conditions, allowing for the determination of optimal treatment regimes at the landscape-scale. This research will result in much-needed and tangible information for the New Jersey Forest Fire Service, and will directly inform their decision-making as they move forward with their extensive fuels management program. Additionally, the interplay between remote sensing, extensive field sampling and modeling presented here provide a potentially groundbreaking approach for evaluating fuel treatment effectiveness in a variety of other forest and shrub-dominated systems.

Principal Investigator: Nicholas S. Skowronski

Agency/Organization: Forest Service

Branch or Dept: NRS-Silas Little Experimental Forest

Other Project Collaborators

Type	Name	Agency/Organization	Branch or Dept
Budget Contact	Debbie L. Giovanopoulos	Forest Service	NRS-Northern Research Station
Co-Principal Investigator	Kenneth L. Clark	Forest Service	NRS-Silas Little Experimental Forest
Co-Principal Investigator	William E. Mell	Forest Service	PNW-Seattle-Managing Natural Disturbances
Co-Principal Investigator	Albert J. Simeoni	Worcester Polytechnic Institute	Department of Fire Protection Engineering
Collaborator/Contributor	Robert Kremens	Rochester Institute of Technology	Imaging Science
Funding Cooperator	Nicholas S. Skowronski	Forest Service	NRS-Silas Little Experimental Forest
Grants and Agreements Contact	David G Garrison	Forest Service	NRS-Northern Research Station
Lead Reviewer	David R. Weise	Forest Service	PSW-Forest Fire Lab-Riverside

Project Locations

Consortium

Appalachian

Level	State	Agency	Unit
STATE	NJ	MULTIPLE

Project Deliverables

There is no final report available for this project.

	ID	Type	Title
	10346	Poster	Turbulence and Energy Fluxes During Prescribed Fires in the New Jersey Pinelands

Supporting Documents

There are no supporting documents available for this project.

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