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• Mature, unmanaged forests in western North America provide important reference conditions for managers, yet little is known about fuel composition and the factors that influence fuel accumulation in such stands. Our objectives were to characterize fuels in a passively managed landscape of dry forests in central Oregon and identify environmental factors influencing fuel accumulation.
• Ordination techniques and analysis of variance revealed no statistical differences in total fuel loads across a wide range of environmental conditions.
• Individual fuel size classes, however, did vary by stand location and composition. Interior stands had more 1-to 100-h fuels and snags than stands at or near the edge, stands dominated by ponderosa pine had fewer small-diameter fuels and snags, lodgepole pine stands had more 1-h fuels and snags, and white fir stands had more 10-h fuels, duff, and snag basal area.
• Tree species, density and age, and years since last fire were the most important environmental variables, explaining 23% of the variation in fuels.
• Our results present further evidence that fuel composition is highly variable at many spatial and temporal scales. They also provide useful baseline information for managers of fire-prone western forests.
Cataloging Information
- coniferous forests
- CWD - coarse woody debris
- duff
- fire management
- forest management
- fuel accumulation
- fuel loading
- fuel management
- fuel types
- heavy fuels
- old growth forests
- old-growth forest
- Oregon
- Pinus ponderosa
- ponderosa pine
- population density
- size classes
- snags
- stand characteristics
This bibliographic record was either created or modified by Tall Timbers and is provided without charge to promote research and education in Fire Ecology. The E.V. Komarek Fire Ecology Database is the intellectual property of Tall Timbers.