Climatic and edaphic gradients predict variation in wildland fuel hazard in south-eastern Australia

Abstract

© 2019 The Authors. Ecography published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Nordic Society Oikos Understanding spatial variation in wildland fuel is central to predicting wildfire behaviour as well as current and future fire regimes. Vegetation (plant material) – both live (biomass) and dead (necromass) – constitutes most aspects of wildland fuel (hereafter ‘fuel’). It therefore is likely that factors influencing vegetation structure and composition – climate, soils, disturbance – also will influence fuel structure and associated hazard. Nonetheless, these relationships are poorly understood in temperate environments. In this study, we used an extensive database of fuel hazard assessment..