Total Fuel (Dead and Down) Load

Stephens et al. (2022) note that total dead/down values over 20 (short) tons/ac (40 Mg/ha) resulted in high severity in 56% of the pixels. Higuera and Abatzoglou (2020) note that fuel and fuel aridity, where fuel is "non-limiting" , are a primary control on area burned at interannual to millennial timescales. Thus, it is more important than ever to define fuel limitation and map where it is on the landscape as a fundamental metric for where, even under hotter climates, low to moderate severity fire is still a strong likelihood.

Data and Resources

Additional Info

Field Value
Last Updated February 28, 2025, 07:38 (UTC)
Created February 28, 2025, 07:38 (UTC)
category /Fire Dynamics/Severity
collection_name California Landscape Metrics
creation_method This data layer currently exists only for the Sierra Nevada region. Efforts are underway to explore development of F3 data for the rest of California. The [F3 model](https://docs.google.com/document/d/15tXCMkEzUEgQKHoXL74cftwtLuz3z-Rm/edit#heading=h.1t3h5sf) generated several different raster surfaces of fuel loading estimates of the coarse woody debris by non-overlapping predefined size classes; including 1, 10, 100, 1000-hour fuels (FLOAD_1-5). The model also produced estimates for coarse woody debris of heavy fuels by non-overlapping predefined size classes which are greater than the 1000-hour fuel size (>=12"; FLOAD_6-9) and for litter and duff. 2019 to 2021 Update: No adjustments were made for 2021 due to uncertainties in conversions based on the limits with which change detection information can quantify the individual components of this metric. For areas with disturbance 2019-2021 (defined as eDaRT MMI >= 10% canopy cover loss), total dead/down fuel values are not represented for 2021 (i.e., NULL). For areas undisturbed 2019-2021, it is a reasonable assumption that total dead/down fuels did not change significantly over the course of two years. This layer for the Total Dead/Down Fuels metric is derived from F3 layers (2021) using the following formula: _sum(FLOAD_1-9, LITTER, DUFF)_
data_units Short tons/acre
data_vintage 2021
element Severity
encoding utf8
file_name SNV_TotalFuelLoad_202111_202209_T2_v5
format GeoTiff
harvest_object_id 64609bdb-a8af-4170-b907-ddd04f140df3
harvest_source_id a2637971-af12-457f-ae4a-831d2202a539
harvest_source_title WIFIRE Commons
maximum_value 95.5
metric_definition_and_relevance Stephens et al. (2022) note that total dead/down values over 20 (short) tons/ac (40 Mg/ha) resulted in high severity in 56% of the pixels. Higuera and Abatzoglou (2020) note that fuel and fuel aridity, **where fuel is "non-limiting"** , are a primary control on area burned at interannual to millennial timescales. Thus, it is more important than ever to define fuel limitation and map where it is on the landscape as a fundamental metric for where, even under hotter climates, low to moderate severity fire is still a strong likelihood.
minimum_value 0.0
pillar Fire Dynamics
spatial {"type": "Polygon", "coordinates": [[[-122.2883616476824, 35.05769372687348], [-117.5563290826801, 35.05769372687348], [-117.5563290826801, 42.00332292672577], [-122.2883616476824, 42.00332292672577], [-122.2883616476824, 35.05769372687348]]]}
tier 2