Landscape composition influences local pattern of fire size in the eastern Canadian boreal forest: role of weather and landscape mosaic on fire size distribution in mixedwood boreal forest using the Prescribed Fire Analysis System
Christelle Hély A E , C. Marie-Josée Fortin B , Kerry R. Anderson C and Yves Bergeron D
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations
A Centre Européen de Recherche et d’Enseignement des Géosciences de l’Environnement (CEREGE), CNRS UMR 6635, Université Aix-Marseille, Europôle de l’Arbois, BP 80, F-13545 Aix en Provence, Cedex 4, France.
B Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of Toronto, 25 Harbord Street, Toronto, ON, M5S 3G5, Canada.
C Northern Forestry Centre, 5320 122nd Street, Edmonton, AB, T6H 3S5, Canada.
D Université du Québec en Abitibi-Témiscamingue, 445, Boulevard de l’Université, Rouyn-Noranda, QC, J9X 5E4, Canada.
E Corresponding author. Email: hely@cerege.fr
International Journal of Wildland Fire 19(8) 1099-1109 https://doi.org/10.1071/WF09112
Submitted: 15 October 2009 Accepted: 3 August 2010 Published: 10 December 2010
Journal Compilation © IAWF 2010
Abstract
Wildfire simulations were carried out using the Prescribed Fire Analysis System (PFAS) to study the effect of landscape composition on fire sizes in eastern Canadian boreal forests. We used the Lake Duparquet forest as reference, plus 13 forest mosaic scenarios whose compositions reflected lengths of fire cycle. Three fire weather risks based on duff moisture were used. We performed 100 simulations per risk and mosaic, with topography and hydrology set constant for the reference. Results showed that both weather and landscape composition significantly influenced fire sizes. Weather related to fire propagation explained almost 79% of the variance, while landscape composition and weather conditions for ignition explained ∼14 and 2% respectively. In terms of landscape, burned area increased with increasing presence of shade-tolerant species, which are related to long fire cycles. Comparisons among the distributions of cumulated area burned from scenarios plus those from the Société de Protection des Forêts contre le Feu database archives showed that PFAS simulated realistic fire sizes using the 80–100% class of probable fire extent. Future analyses would best be performed on a larger region as the limited size of the study area could not capture fires larger than 11 000 ha, which represent 3% of fires but 65% of the total area burned at the provincial scale.
Additional keywords: Canadian Duff Moisture Code, fire cycle, PFAS model, Quebec, scenarios.
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