Large fires (400 ha +) occur about every seven to ten years in the vegetation types located at US Army Garrison Camp Williams (AGCW) practice range located near South Jordan, Utah. In 2010 and 2012, wildfires burned beyond the Camp’s boundaries into the wildland-urban interface. The political and public reaction to these fire escapes was intense. Researchers at Utah State University were asked to organize a system of fuel treatments that could be developed to prevent future escapes. The first step of evaluation was to spatially predict fuel model types derived from a random forests classification approach. Fuel types were mapped according to fire behavior fuel models with an overall validation of 72.3% at 0.5 m resolution. Next, using a combination of empirical and semi-empirical based methods, potential fire behavior was analyzed for the dominant vegetation types at AGCW on a climatological basis. Results suggest the need for removal of woody vegetation within 20 m of firebreaks and a minimum firebreak width of 8 m in grassland fuels. In Utah juniper (Juniperus osteosperma (Torr.) Little), results suggest canopy coverage of 25% or less while in Gambel oak (Quercus gambelii Nutt.) stands along the northern boundary of the installation, a fuelbreak width of 60 m for secondary breaks and 90 m for primary breaks is recommended.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:UTAHS/oai:digitalcommons.usu.edu:etd-5598 |
| Date | 01 May 2015 |
| Creators | Frost, Scott M. |
| Publisher | DigitalCommons@USU |
| Source Sets | Utah State University |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | text |
| Format | application/pdf |
| Source | All Graduate Theses and Dissertations |
| Rights | Copyright for this work is held by the author. Transmission or reproduction of materials protected by copyright beyond that allowed by fair use requires the written permission of the copyright owners. Works not in the public domain cannot be commercially exploited without permission of the copyright owner. Responsibility for any use rests exclusively with the user. For more information contact Andrew Wesolek (andrew.wesolek@usu.edu). |
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