Integrating Fire Behavior Models and Geospatial Analysis for Wildland Fire Risk Assessment and Fuel Management Planning

Table 4

Example carbon calculations from ArcFuels for analyzing carbon impacts of fuel treatments. The Forest Vegetation Simulator with the Fire and Fuels Extension is used to simulate a fuel treatment and wildfire, and the resulting carbon pools are compared to the same stand without a treatment. It is in this example that harvesting residue is burned on the site and thus contributes to emissions. The carbon balance determines whether the treatment could potentially contribute a carbon offset. Data are for stand 451 in the Mt. Emily study area.

Carbon pool	Tonnes ha^−1
No treatment carbon emissions	12.1
No treatment carbon stocks	49.5
Fuel treatment carbon emissions	18.2
Fuel treatment carbon stocks	31.9
Carbon balance—emissions	−6.1
Carbon balance—stocks	−17.6
Total carbon change	−23.6