Determining fuel moisture thresholds to assess wildfire hazard: A contribution to an operational early warning system.

ABSTRACT: Fuel moisture content (FMC) is an important fuel property for assessing wildfire hazard, since it influences fuel flammability and fire behavior. The relationship between FMC and fire activity differs among land covers and seems to be a property of each ecosystem. Our objectives were to analyze pre-fire FMC among different land covers and to propose a wildfire hazard classification for the Sierras Chicas in the Chaco Serrano subregion (Argentina), by analyzing pre-fire FMC distributions observed for grasslands, shrublands and forests and using percentiles to establish thresholds. For this purpose, we used a fire database derived from Landsat imagery (30 m) and derived FMC maps every 8 days from 2002 to 2016 using MODIS reflectance products and empirical equations of FMC. Our results indica

SUBMITTER: Arganaraz JP 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6171885 | biostudies-literature | 2018

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature