Project Summary

This site contains instructions for performing FARSITE comparative fire spread analysis of bark beetle infested stands between ENDEMIC, EPIDEMIC and POST-EPIDEMIC conditions for three intermountain forest types: lodgepole pine, Engelmann spruce and Douglas-fir.

For each species/condition, the process involves (some data/steps can be re–used):

  1. Data acquisition
    • Field measurements, processed in BEHAVE
    • Landscape data from landfire.gov
    • Weather data from Western Region Climate Center (WRCC)
    • GIS Data (*optional)
      • USFS Forest Health Monitoring forest insect and disease aerial detection surveys (ADS)
      • USFS Fire History
      • Vegetation
      • *Weather Stations
      • *Rivers
      • *Roads
      • *Modis MOD14 Thermal Anomalies, Fires and Biomass Burning
  2. Study area selection
  3. Data processing
    • Weather data from FireFamilyPlus into FARSITE format
      • modified to adjust windspeeds based on Crosby Chandler
    • Landscape into FARSITE
    • Landscape files to ASCII
      • average stand height
      • slope
      • fuel model
      • elevation
      • crown bulk density
      • crown base height
      • canopy cover
      • aspect
    • ASCII files from FARSITE to ArcGIS
    • In ArcGIS, convert ASCII to polygon
    • In ArcGIS, use vegetation, ADS, and fire history to modify fuel model, crown base height and crown bulk density using values from measured data
    • Landscape files from polygon to ASCII for import back into FARSITE
    • Calibrate FARSITE to ensure simulated fire behavior matches known fire behavior
    • Run FARSITE simulation 30 times per species per condition for each of 30 randomly selected 3 day fire periods drawn from the time period overlap between availalbe weather data and ADS
    • Analyze FARSITE output in ArcGIS to produce graphic depiction of probability of spatial distribution of fire spread