Synonyms
Definition
Curing refers to the process of grass senescence, or die-off, and the transition of live fuels into the dead fuel component of the fuel bed. It is most commonly used to refer to grasses; however in some systems the term may also include shrubs and other herbs. The grass curing level represents the proportion of dead fuels within the fuel bed, with a fully, or 100%, cured grassland being composed solely of dead fuels.
Introduction
Curing describes the natural process of grass senescence and drying out of grass fuel beds (McArthur 1966; Cheney and Sullivan 2008). As a quantitative measure, it describes the proportion of dead material within a grassland (Kidnie et al. 2015). Grass species in temperate and dry climates where fires occur typically exhibit an annual cyclic growth and development pattern, with the individual plants growing and senescing in relative unison. Annual grasses...
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Duff, T.J., Bessell, R., Cruz, M.G. (2019). Grass Curing/Cured Fuels. In: Manzello, S. (eds) Encyclopedia of Wildfires and Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) Fires. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-51727-8_238-1
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