MPB Effects on Wildfire Rate of Spread and Landscape Fire Risk
How do MPB-killed trees affect fire size, probability of burn, and rate of spread?
Until recently, few fires have actually occurred within the first few years following MPB outbreaks. Because of this, there has been relatively very little landscape available to study the interactions of fires following MPB attack. This situation has now changed markedly following the 2017 wildfire season in BC which burned more than 1.2M ha. A very large portion of these fires occurred in areas that had experienced MPB-attack.
Observations made by fire behaviour analysts indicate that these fires burned larger, spread faster, and burned more intensely than they would have in the absence of the MPB-affected fuels. These recent observations have yet to be quantified, and it is our intent to study these fires (and all fires since 2001) to advance our knowledge with regard to understanding how MPB-killed trees affect the rate of spread of fire, and how this in turn affects the relative burn probability of the landscape.
Questions
- How do MPB-killed trees affect the rate of spread of wildfires?
- How do MPB-killed trees affect the size of subsequent wildfires?
- How do MPB-killed trees affect landscape burn probability?
