Characterization of custom fuel models for supporting fire modeling-based optimization of prescribed fire planning in relation to wildfire prevention (southern Catalonia, Spain)

Abstract

Prescribed fires are an important fuel management tool in Mediterranean fire-prone landscapes, but there is a lack of custom fuel models developed for Mediterranean-type ecosystems and, in particular, for describing ecosystems, which have been treated with a prescribed fire. Such custom fuel models would allow using fire modeling-based approaches for assessing the efficiency of real prescribed fires in relation to fire control at the landscape scale, but also for exploring the efficiency of alternative prescribed fire scenarios under climate change. Pre-burn field-collected vegetation data for shrublands under a Pinus halepensis canopy in a semi-arid Mediterranean study area located in southern Catalonia (Northeastern Spain) are presented and compared to values of vegetation parameters published in previous works and commonly used for fuel models characterization. The differences found at the species- and community-levels support the need of developing custom fuel models for improving future fire projections.