This presentation from Felipe Aires of Sydney University discusses how adding information about plant flammability and fuel complex alteration to current weed classification frameworks can help integrate fire and weed management. Presentation from Nature Conservation Council of NSW 2015 Bushfire Conference - Fire and Restoration: working with fire for healthy lands.

1. Fuel load, structure and
flammability of weeds as key factors
in Australian classification
frameworks
Felipe S. Aires

2. Fire Regime
Frequency
Intensity
Extent
Type
Seasonality
Topography
Fuel
Climate
NativePlantsInvasive species

3. Fuel load and Vertical Structure
Fractionheight(cm)
Olive
Intermediate
Woodland

4. Leaf flammability
Ignitability
- Time to ignition (s)
Sustainability
- Flame duration (s)
Combustibility
- burning rate (g s-1)
Consumability
- proportion of mass or volume
consumed by fire (%)
Natives ~ 30 s
Invasive ~ 19 s
Natives ~ 102 s
Invasive ~ 108 s
Natives ~ 0.20 g s-1
Invasive ~ 0.16 g s-1
Natives ~ 13%
Invasive ~ 8%

5. Fire behaviour prediction

6. • Fuel data
– Systematically added to a common database
• Flammability data
– Standardised methodology
• Provide enough information to create fire behaviour
predictions
• Improve decision and policy making when dealing with
management of novel fuel types such as weed invasion
Recommendations