UNDERSTANDING POST-FIRE FUEL DYNAMICS USING BURNT PERMANENT FOREST PLOTS

(A) THE LOCATION OF ALL the Lake McKenzie AUSPLOTS (SMALL RED DOTS) AND THE REGIONS IN WHICH THE LOW SEVERITY FIRES OCCURRED IN 2016 (YELLOW RECTANGLES), (B-D) THE Fire, part of the LOCATION OF THE FOUR AUSPLOTS THAT BURNED IN 2016 IN THEIR Mersey Forest Fire RESPECTIVE REGIONS, (B) QLD: NORTH QUEENSLAND, (C) Complex, which WA:SOUTHWEST WESTERN AUSTRALIA, AND (C) HTAS: CENTRAL burnt 25,723 ha TASM. [...] LOCATION OF THE MCKENZIE AUSPLOT, AND THE DISTRIBUTION OF THE MAJOR NATIVE VEGETATION TYPES IN THE REGION. [...] As the rate of spread and intensity of a fire is a function of fuels, fire weather and topography,21 and as only the latter can be physically manipulated, the effect of fuel load and structure on fire behaviour, and the subsequent reduction in fuels, is extremely important to understand. [...] We estimated the biomass of resprouting and regenerating plants using the aforementioned equations, and for the dead plants we used similar allometric equations predicting biomass partitioning to calculate the biomass of branches without foliage.37 Fire Intensity and Severity In the Ausplots, to measure severity of the fires, we measured the height of charring on each overtorey tree (except those. [...] Severity of Fires In Southern New South Wales Due to the large amount of variation in fire severity experienced by the Ausplots in SNSW, and due to the exclusive dominance of resprouting eucalypts in the mid-storey and emergent canopy, we measured the fire severity in each of the subplots containing transects, using the diameter distribution of trees in each of 5 resprouting intensity classes, and.