Ordinations of species and fuel arrays and their use in fire management
Malanson GP and Butler DR. 1985. Ordinations of species and fuel arrays and their use in fire management. Forest Ecology and Management. 12(1):65-71
Fuel arrays were sampled on 40 plots on avalanche paths in Montana, U.S.A. Two measures of fire intensity were calculated for each plot: total heat release (kWh m−2) and Byram's Index (kW m−1). The biomass of species was ordinated using Detrended Correspondence Analysis (DCA). The fuel arrays, under three assumptions, were ordinated using DCA and Principal Component Analysis (PCA). The axes for the floristic and fuel load ordinations are not well correlated. Stepwise regressions of the fire intensity measures on the ordination axes show that PCA represents the relationship between fuel and fire better than DCA. Similar regressions on the sampled fuel arrays produce equivalent predictors. Ordinations of vegetation and fuel may provide information for use in fire behavior calculations, but of themselves cannot be used to predict fire.
- Type
- Journal Article
- Authors
- Malanson, George; Butler, David
- Units
- CRCO , GLAC
- Keywords
- fire management, fuel arrays, vegetation
- Subjects
- Ecological Framework: Landscapes | Fire and Fuel Dynamics | Fire and Fuel Dynamics