An efficient and comprehensive field protocol for assessing fuel characteristics for fire behaviour modelling in Australian open forests

Knowledge of fuel characteristics and their spatial and temporal distribution is increasingly important as fire managers rely on this information to quantify fire risk, plan prescribed burning activities, forecast fire danger and predict wildland fire behaviour and effects. Current fuel inventory approaches used in Australia largely rely on visual assessment methods that are subjective and lack the consistency and accuracy required for fire management applications. We describe a protocol to quantify characteristics for various fuel strata considered in Australian fire modelling applications, namely: litter and suspended dead fuels; downed wood debris; live understorey; bark; and overstorey canopy. The method provides information about:•Cover and height (or depth) of each strata;•Mass of fine fuels of litter, dead suspended and live understorey layers (dead fuel diameter (<i>d</i>) ≤ 0.6 cm, live fuel <i>d</i> ≤ <i>0.4</i> cm); and•Mass and size class distribution of downed woody fuels (<i>d</i>>0.6 cm). The protocol integrates a variety of sampling methods including destructive sampling for fine fuel particles, line intersect method for downed woody fuel, and indirect approaches relying on double sampling techniques to estimate live understorey, bark and overstorey canopy fuels. The protocol can be adapted to enable application to situations with distinct accuracy requirements. Data collected using the protocol will have direct use in developing models of forest fuel dynamics and evaluating outputs from remote sensing approaches to describe these fuels.