Multidisciplinary fire science research at the Sycan Marsh, Oregon

Abstract

In October 2017, a diverse campaign of fire research was carried out in the context of management prescribed burns at the Nature Conservancy’s Sycan Marsh Preserve, a relatively isolated site in south central Oregon characterized by extensive grasslands, dry ponderosa pine forests and unique wetland habitats. The overarching objective of this effort was to develop integrated and reliable fuels, weather and fire behavior datasets for evaluation of different fire models. This broad goal required an integrated methods approach to facilitate fuel mapping and fire behavior observation and measurements at multiple scales. Fuel mapping efforts, intended to provide 3D inputs for physics-based fire models, link traditional surface fuels and tree measurement sampling with new approaches that enable development of comprehensive data across larger areas. These new approaches include a mobile app-based tool for surface fuels, drone imagery-based mapping, airborne LiDAR data, and 3D modeling using the STANDFIRE prototype fuel modeling platform. Wind measurements included a large network of 3m anemometer towers and a SODAR instrument to capture the vertical wind profile in 3D. Emissions data collection included vehicle and aerostat mounted sensors sampling particulates and gas concentrations. Fire behavior measurements included surface instruments and thermal imagery from fixed wing and drone platforms. This presentation will provide an overview of the overall experiment, present some preliminary data, and discuss future directions. With more research burns planned in the months and years to come, we see the Sycan Marsh Preserve as a site for collaborative fire science research, and as a test bed for new methods and approaches in mapping fuels in 3D at landscape scales, integration of fire behavior and weather data across scales, and in data and approaches for evaluating models across scales and different levels of detail.