FRDAC Activities & Products
This concise trifold handout outlines wildland fire fuels treatment options in Alaska
This guidebook contains fuels and fire behavior information and vegetation characteristics for Alaska. Each fuel type (taken from 4th level Viereck classification names) is associated with up to three illustrative photos, the most appropriate fuel models, the primary carrier of fire, fire behavior notes, vegetation characteristics, individual 4th-level Viereck classes, and fuel types with similar characteristics. This document also contains a crosswalk from vegetation classes to various fuel models.
This document can be used to guide learning users through the fire behavior assessment process from the fireline and field office locations and can also provide important details on fire behavior. Worksheets, definitions, fuel model charts, and fire behavior tables are included.
This field guide is designed to give users a brief overview of the CFFDRS Fire Weather Index System, handy conversion tables, and instructions for calculating fuel moisture codes (FFMC, DMC, and DC), fire behavior indexes (ISI and BUI) and the Fire Weather Index (FWI) from the field.
The following process can be used for drying duff, foliar, woody, and herbaceous fuel moisture samples along with entering data and calculating moisture content and the CFFDRS Indices.
Dr. Jane Wolken, of University of Alaska-Fairbanks, Scenarios Network for Alaska Planning, summarized the history and current use of the Canadian Forest Fire Danger Rating system in a Summary Report at the request of the Alaska Wildfire Coordinating Group. The report reviews 8 topics for which the Alaska Interagency Fire Community wanted to evaluate the ‘state of knowledge’:
- Overwintering stations: pros and cons
- Fuel moisture measurements and comparisons
- Adjustment of mid- season indices based on fuel moisture measurements
- Whether data trends or raw values are more important for fire behavior prediction
- Impacts of using solar noon vs. non-solar noon observations
- Effects of errors in precipitation reporting
- Analysis of field data from Alaska
- Justification for thresholds in fire danger rating charts
Jane reviewed more than 60 documents for this report and provides a preliminary summary of the most relevant resources,including peer-reviewed journal publications, government technical reports, conference proceedings, results from workshop/conference presentations, and personal communications from individuals in the local and international wildfire community.
Data sheet for field fuel moisture sampling in Alaska.
This method has been modified from the Fuel Moisture Sampling in Boreal Forest Duff manual (by Brenda Wilmore) for field use. For more information on volumetric or TDR (time domain reflectometry) probe sampling procedures, please refer to the full sampling manual.
The methods below are generally based on R.A. Norum and M. Miller, 1984. Measuring Fuel Moisture Content in Alaska: Standard Methods and Procedures. USFS General Technical Report PNW-171.
Fuel moisture data entry spreadsheet for use in Alaska.
Part of the interagency Alaska Fuel Moisture Sampling Workshops in May 2012 and 2013 held by FRDAC, in partnership with the Alaska Fire Science Consortium (AFSC), to train fire staff on fuel moisture sampling. This power point provides an overview of techniques for fuel moisture sampling.
Sampling guide for the moisture content of dead grass-like plants in Alaska.
Part of the interagency Alaska Fuel Moisture Sampling Workshops in May 2012 and 2013 held by FRDAC, in partnership with the Alaska Fire Science Consortium (AFSC), to train fire staff on fuel moisture sampling. This power point provides an introduction to fuel mositure sampling.
This two part webinar series focused on LANDFIRE National products that were currently available to Alaska. The scope and schedule of the LANDFIRE Refresh project was also discussed along with many other interesting topics. The webinar videos are broken in two segments.
This document provides basic protocols to monitor and inventory Alaska fuels and/or fire effects. The protocol provides sampling guidance to meet common fire effects monitoring objectives; however, each project lead should consider how well this protocol meets specific project objectives. These guidelines for monitoring wildland fires, prescribed fires and mechanical treatments were developed in consultation with the Interagency Alaska Fire Effects Task Group (FETG), NPS Fire Monitoring Handbook (FMH 2003), and USFS FIREMONmethods.
The purpose of this experimental forecast is to provide managers with a forecast of the area burned in Interior Alaska for the upcoming fire season. The product provides a forecast of the magnitude of the upcoming fire season for interior Alaska as a whole and gives an estimate of certainty associated with the forecast.