Fuels
and Fire Behavior
FUELS
Ground fuels are measured by destructively sampling the forest floor at each
grid point. Litter and duff samples are collected from an area of 1 ft2
and depth for each layer is measured. One-, 10-,
100-hour fuels, and other component (cones, bark, and other vegetation parts)
are separated out of the individual samples. The separation process supplements
the woody material inventory by determining the woody component incorporated in
the forest floor.
 Fuel is classified by size class, decay class
condition, and the number of intercepts and diameters of
3+" diameter material by species. Three
50-foot transects were established at each grid
point and in a randomly selected direction
with the outer 2 being 45 degrees apart.
Measurements on the outer transects
begin at the end farthest from the grid point while the middle transect starts
closest to the grid point. Downed woody fuels in the 1- and 10-hour class are measured on the
first 6 ft of the transect and 100-hour fuels are measured along the first 12
ft. Fuels in the 1000-hour class are measured along the total length of the
transect. At 10, 25, and 40 ft the litter depth, duff depth, and fuel depth are
recorded.
COURSE WOODY DEBRIS
 Strip-plots
(4 m by 20 m) were established at
every other grid point with the center woody fuel
transect line serving as the strip-plot center line.
Within each strip-plot only logs or parts of logs that are at least 1 m
in length and have a large end diameter 15 cm or greater are measured and
counted.
FIRE BEHAVIOR
Fire behavior is recorded for each treatment area by noting flame length,
rate of spread, smoldering spread, and fuel moisture. Temperature, relative
humidity, and wind speed and direction are noted prior to burning.
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