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An understanding of forest surface fuels and canopy structure are important to fire and fuels mangers, wildlife biologist and ecologists. Past approaches to fuels inventory and mapping have been driven by fire control and suppression and were primarily used to predict fire behavior and hazard. While, current approaches are designed for use by a much broader audience within natural resource management.

In this class we will explore the the purpose and limitations of both current and past approaches to fuels inventory and mapping, review field techniques of conducting a fuels inventory, discuss the ecological role of woody debris in terrestrial ecosystems and use the fuels characterization classification system (FCCS) to analyze fuels inventory data.

Course Structure

As you can see from the Lesson Schedule, this course is divided into 7  topics including a one week workshop. You are expected to spend 1 week on each of these topics. In each Lesson you will find the following information:

1. A list of learning objectives for the module to let you know where you should be headed.
2. Reading assignments.
3. Lecture materials which are available as a PDF or a Flash Movie
4. And any assignments that are associated with the lesson such as threaded discussion sessions or homework.