Synonyms
Definition
Ground fuels are organic materials such as forest duff, organic soil, and highly decomposed coarse woody debris. Burning of these fuels is dominated by smoldering combustion which takes place at lower temperatures for longer durations than takes place during flaming combustion of sound dead woody fuels.
Introduction
Fuels supporting wildfires are produced by a balance between the accumulation and loss of biomass that results from the growth, death, and eventual decomposition of trees, shrubs, grasses, and other vegetation. These ongoing biological processes are influenced by numerous interrelated factors such as species differences, climate, soils, and time since last disturbance by biological and non-biological agents such as insects and disease or fire and wind. These overlapping processes, which operate on local to global spatial scales and on short to long time scales, produce the large range of fuel types,...
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References
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Reardon, J. (2020). Ground Fuel. In: Manzello, S.L. (eds) Encyclopedia of Wildfires and Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI) Fires. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-52090-2_26
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-52090-2_26
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