Citation

Gosper CR, Yates CJ, Prober SM, Wiehl G. Int. J. Wildland Fire 2014; 23(3): 385-393.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2014, International Association of Wildland Fire, Fire Research Institute, Publisher CSIRO Publishing)

DOI

10.1071/WF13096

PMID

unavailable

Abstract

Understanding fire behaviour and vegetation flammability is important for predicting the consequences of fires. Visual assessments of fuel, such as those developed in Project Vesta, have been widely applied to facilitate rapid data acquisition to support fire behaviour models. However, the accuracy and potential wider application to other plant communities of Vesta visual fuel assessments has received limited attention. We conducted visual fuel assessments and detailed quantitative structural measurements in Eucalyptus salubris (gimlet) woodlands in the world's largest extant Mediterranean-climate woodland. With one exception, there was moderate to strong correlation between visual assessments of cover in vegetation layers and quantitative measurements, indicating that visual assessments adequately capture changes in fuels. This suggests that the Vesta visual fuel assessment methodology may have wide application in Australian eucalypt forests and woodlands and perhaps in similar communities around the world. However, several issues limiting the wider application of Vesta visual fuel assessments were identified, mainly associated with differences in community ecology between non-resprouter dominated E. salubris woodlands and the epicormic resprouter-dominated dry forests where the method was developed. Patterns of change in fuels suggest that flammability in E. salubris woodlands peaks at intermediate times since fire, potentially providing opportunities for fire management interventions.