Document Type
Article
Journal/Book Title/Conference
Fire
Volume
3
Issue
1
Publisher
Pavilion Publishing and Media Ltd.
Publication Date
3-9-2020
Funder
Utah National Guard, Army Garrison Camp Williams
Utah Agricultural Experiment Station
First Page
1
Last Page
20
Creative Commons License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.
Abstract
The planning of fuel treatments for ecological or societal purposes requires an in-depth understanding of the conditions associated with the occurrence of free-burning fire behavior for the area of concern. Detailed fire-environment analysis for Army Garrison Camp Williams (AGCW) in north-central Utah was completed as a prerequisite for fuel treatment planning, using a procedure that could be generally applied. Vegetation and fuels data, topographic and terrain features, and weather and climate data, were assessed and integrated into predictive fuel models to aid planning. A fire behavior fuel model map was developed from biophysical variables, vegetation type, and plot survey data using random forests, and resulted in an overall classification rate of 72%. The predominate vegetation type-fuel complex was grass, followed by lesser amounts of Gambel oak, Wyoming big sagebrush and Utah juniper. The majority of AGCW is mountainous in nature, characterized by slopes less than 40% in steepness with slightly more northerly and easterly aspects than south and west, and elevations that ranged from 1650 to 1950 m above mean sea level. Local fire weather data compiled from the three nearest remote automated weather stations indicated that average temperature maxima (32◦C) and relative humidity minima (12%) usually occurred between 1400 to 1500 h daily, and from July to August, seasonally. The semi-arid climate at AGCW, coupled with the corresponding preponderance of flashy fuel types and sloping terrain, constitutes a formidable fire environment in which to plan for mitigating against adverse fire behavior.
Recommended Citation
Frost, S.M., M.E. Alexander, R. J. DeRose, and M.J. Jenkins. 2020. Fire-environment analysis: an example of Army Garrison Camp Williams, Utah. Fire 3(1):6.
