This project addresses the urgent need to reduce wildfire risk across the western United States, especially in
non-forest areas where fast-growing grasses can quickly become dangerous fuel. While most wildfire prevention
efforts focus on forests, much of the land that burns each year is actually grassland or shrubland - often made
worse by invasive grasses that dry out and catch fire easily.
To support the Wildfire Crisis Strategy, which aims to treat up to 50 million acres of land over the next decade, this
project will help fire managers figure out where and when wildfire risk is highest so they can take action before
fires start. To this end, the goals of this project are to:
1. Quantify the critical fuel threshold for each grassland and shrubland vegetation type in the western US.
2. Use descriptive statistics to identify abiotic drivers (primarily surface meteorology and soils) that produce critical
fuel quantities.
The project, undertaken with partners at the USDA Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station and the UofA School of Natural Resources and Environment, uses remote sensing data of biomass, vegetation composition data and weather data to create maps
of fuel thresholds and fuel risk models to make wildfire prevention more timely, targeted, and cost-effective.
Project Point of Contact: Stefanie Hermann (stef@arizona.edu)