Hi Lindsay,
Thanks for this! This thread has been fairly quiet so I have some information from Caroline Noble that she put together after reading your post. I'll paste it below:
Thanks for your post.
Landscape Fire Behavior (LFB) model outputs of flame length and fireline intensity should be useful for discussions with SHPO or wildlife officials (assuming the landscape fuel model assignment has been validated and calibrated). If threshold temperature values could be identified for sensitive resources, these could be correlated with model outputs to define “acceptable” levels of fire intensity during prescribed burns and incorporated into prescribed fire plan prescription parameters. I have not looked for the most current research but some Fire Effects information on this topic is available at: http://www.firearchaeology.com/Fire_Effects.html
Applying Ecosystem Function (EF) in IFTDSS for Highly Valued Resources and Assets (HVRA) evaluation in Oak-Pine restoration would be a much trickier venture. The BioPhysical Settings (BPS) data and default assignments of Ecosystem Function (EF) and positive and negative effects are an aggregation applied to nationwide mapping. As you know, the finer scale ecosystems are quite nuanced, especially Pine-Oak systems which often require repeated applications of fire for restoration. Additionally, the conditions used for prescribed fire are far from “worst case” which is as underlying assumption for the Landscape Burn Probability model and Quantitative Risk Assessment (QWRA) process used in IFTDSS including the response function by flame length assignments. You might want to speak with Beth Buchanan in the USFS who helped with the original BPS to Ecosystem Function assignments from the Landfire data. There was a significant amount of lumping to pare it down to just 12 groups.
That said, the concepts behind Response Functions are appropriate for prescribed fire planning so discussing the LFB model outputs (rather than burn probability outputs) by BioPhysical Setting might be a better approach.
Although it does not directly meet your question, I am attaching a report prepared by Rob Klein of the National Park Service that summarizes some lessons learned from years of applying prescribed fire to restore Pine Oak ecosystems. I hope that it is helpful and perhaps discussing these issues with Beth and Rob can spur continued discussion on applying IFTDSS model outputs to inform the planning process.
Please include members of the IFTDSS team as you pursue this topic. It is a great post and hopefully will continue to spur brainstorming on how IFTDSS can help meet needs in this management realm.
Lindsay Rae Silvia
Hi IFTDSS Team and Community!
Using IFTDSS fire behavior modeling to inform prescribed fire effects analysis on resources (e.g., heritage rock walls, sensitive smoke bat habitat, or amphibibian habitat) would be helpful for interdisciplinary team reviews.
There is one example I'm aware of using fire behavior modeling to determine effect/no effect review of T&ES Fisher as provided by Jennifer Anderson of NPS.
I'd like to use IFTDSS to model fire behavior and Ecosystem Function HVRA in concert with monitoring data to illustrate prescribed fire behavior in Northern New England where restoring historical fire regime in oak-pine communites is proposed.
There are several resource concerns with considerationg to this new (in our local lifetime/careers) approach to the restore fire to these fire-adapted community landscapes in northern New England forests.
1. The presence of historical rock walls and cellar holes require in depth and laborsome surveying and often exclude the application of low-severity surface prescribed fire.
Some land management agencies have programmatic agreements in place with SHPO for prescribed fire activities. How do you think IFTDSS could fit in to help heritage and land managers evaluate and develop criteria toward such a programmatic agreement?
2. Fire's role on the northern New England landscape has been challenged when proposing oak-pine natural community restoration. How do you think IFTDSS' HVRA Ecosystem Function could be interpreted (and communicated) to illustrate the positive-neutral-negative spectrum effects on various BpS?
Hope to check back here for any responses or examples of how you've used IFTDSS to inform interdisciplinary effects analyses.
-L