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A Case Study on Fuel Treatment Effects in Southwestern British Columbia: Surprises found in a Scenario Analysis

Author

John Braun

Co-author

Rhonda Millikin
Martin Alexander
Shabnam Fani

Conference

TIES 2024

Format: IPS Abstract

Keywords: risk

Session: Invited Session 8B - Innovations in Wildfire Risk Modeling: Exploring Fire-Weather, Climate, and Fuel Ecology Dynamics as Drivers of Occurrence and Spread

Wednesday 4 December 1 p.m. - 2:30 p.m. (Australia/Adelaide)

Abstract

Sampling of thinned and unthinned forest sites was carried out in order to
measure fuel and soil moisture for the purpose of a systematic comparison. These
results will be summarized but most of the presentation will focus on a follow up
scenario analysis that was conducted on some of the covariate data to understand
wind-slope-treatment interactions. The main conclusion from the scenario analysis
is that fuel thinning may be increasing slope-equivalent wind speeds leading to
unexpected increases in the risk of extreme fire spread.