Version 1
: Received: 20 October 2023 / Approved: 23 October 2023 / Online: 23 October 2023 (10:14:12 CEST)
How to cite:
Millikin, R.L.; Braun, W.J.; Alexander, M.E.; Fani, S. Unintended Effects of Fuel Thinning on the Microclimate in the Coastal Forests of Southwestern British Columbia, Canada. Preprints2023, 2023101426. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202310.1426.v1
Millikin, R.L.; Braun, W.J.; Alexander, M.E.; Fani, S. Unintended Effects of Fuel Thinning on the Microclimate in the Coastal Forests of Southwestern British Columbia, Canada. Preprints 2023, 2023101426. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202310.1426.v1
Millikin, R.L.; Braun, W.J.; Alexander, M.E.; Fani, S. Unintended Effects of Fuel Thinning on the Microclimate in the Coastal Forests of Southwestern British Columbia, Canada. Preprints2023, 2023101426. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202310.1426.v1
APA Style
Millikin, R.L., Braun, W.J., Alexander, M.E., & Fani, S. (2023). Unintended Effects of Fuel Thinning on the Microclimate in the Coastal Forests of Southwestern British Columbia, Canada. Preprints. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202310.1426.v1
Chicago/Turabian Style
Millikin, R.L., Martin E. Alexander and Shabnam Fani. 2023 "Unintended Effects of Fuel Thinning on the Microclimate in the Coastal Forests of Southwestern British Columbia, Canada" Preprints. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202310.1426.v1
Abstract
Prescriptions for fuels management are universally applied across forest types in British Columbia, Canada, to reduce fire behaviour potential in the wildland-urban interface. Fuel thinning treatments are assumed to reduce the potential for sustained ignition and crown fire initiation by reducing surface fuel loading. We hypothesized that these prescriptions are not appropriate for the coastal wet forests in the Whistler region of the province. Our study measured the efficacy of fuel thinning treatments in four stands located in the Whistler community forest. We examined several in-stand microclimate variables during snow melt in the spring and at the height of fire danger in late summer, at thinned and unthinned locations paired using GIS- analysis. We found that thinning increased the wildfire risk based on the differences between unthinned and thinned areas in the same forest stand.
Keywords
BC wildfires; climate change; conifer forest fuel complex; fire danger; fire weather; fuel moisture
Subject
Biology and Life Sciences, Forestry
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
