Jeffery B. Cannon 

More up-to-date research on this topic will be delivered at upcoming presentations

 

Wind damage seems to dramatically increase fire behavior—not simply by creating additional fuel, but also by changing fuel arrangement and composition.​

 

Recent research suggests that the behavior of disturbances such as fire may depend on what disturbance have occured previously. In this study, I am investigating how wind damage alters forest fuel composition and changes the behavior of a subsequent fire. 

 

In this study, we created artificial tornado gaps by winching over trees in the Piedmont National Wildlfire Refuge one year prior to a burn. Thus we were able to directly measure how wind damage alters fuel characteristics and subsequent fire behavior.

 

Preliminary Findings: In line with expectations, wind damage increased fuel loads and allowed much more intense fire. However, the change occured for non-intuitive reasons. While fuel loadings did increase following experimental wind damage, most of the change was in the largest fuel classes (trunks and branches) which did not actually burn. Considering only the available fuels, wind damage increased the amount of fine woody debris and grasses. More dramatically—wind damage caused fuel to be clustered in some areas (such as downed crowns). Such fuel aggregation allowed fires to become very intense in downed crowns compared to areas of intact forest. Thus the interaction between wind damage and fire is more complex than a simple fuel addition.