Fuel Sampling - Wildland Fuel Fundamentals and Applications - page 121

Chapter 8
Fuel Sampling

Not everything that can be counted counts, and not everything
that counts can be counted
Albert Einstein

8.1 Background

Directly measuring fuel properties in the field is the most accurate and consistent
method for fire managers and scientists to collect the inputs needed for fuel descrip-
tion and fire behavior and effects simulation, especially when compared to fuel
classification approaches (Chap. 7). Quantification of these properties is generally
accomplished by field sampling ; measuring fuel characteristics in situ to estimate
fuel properties. And since there is a great diversity of fuel components (Chap. 3),
coupled with a large number of fuel characteristics (Chap. 2), there are numerous
sampling designs to estimate fuel properties at the particle, component, and fuelbed
scale. Here, field sampling is a general term used to describe the wide range of ap-
proaches for measuring fuel properties for fuel components, including designing
sample projects, conducting measurements in the field, and creating databases from
measured information. Sampling design is easily the most important aspect of field
sampling and it includes deciding on the sampling intensity (e.g., number plots),
sample locations (e.g., random, stratified random), methods (e.g., planar intercept,
fixed area plots), protocols (e.g., size classes, plot sizes), and techniques (e.g., cali-
per measurements). And since the majority of operational and research fuel sam-
pling methods were designed to estimate loading, this chapter will focus on those
sampling methods that estimate loading for a variety of surface fuel components.
Methods, protocols, and techniques for estimating other fuel properties, such as
mineral contents and particle densities, were mostly developed for research so they
are difficult and costly to employ under operational sampling efforts and therefore,
are not discussed here. This chapter also includes a general description of the com-
mon methods used to measure canopy fuel characteristics in the field.