Description

In the spring of 2001, experimental prescribed burns were conducted on three 20- ha treatment areas in the Ohio Hills of southern Ohio. Each treatment area contained ten 20- 50- m plots on which every tree >10 cm in diameter at breast height was inventoried before the burns. The plots also were instrumented with thermocouple probes which recorded probe temperature every 2 seconds during the burn. Tree mortality on the plots is described and compared with predictions from a series of physically based equations describing the flames, stem heating, tissue necrosis, and stem death. Equations for bark thickness and crown volume were developed for 13 species to help predict the ability of a tree to survive the heat from a fire. Fire effects are inferred from thermocouple probe temperature regimes and a calibrated probe heat budget. The equations provide a means of linking an important fire effect (stem death) with fire behavior and thermocouple data.