How Do You Rate This Publication?       

Title:	Understory Herbicide as a Treatment For Reducing Hazardous Fuels and Extreme Fire Behavior in Slash Pine Plantations
Author(s):	Brose, Patrick H.; Wade, Dale
Date:	2002
Source:	Gen. Tech. Rep. SRS–48. Asheville, NC: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Southern Research Station. pp. 109-113
Description:	The 1998 wildfires in Florida sparked a serious debate about the accumulation of hazardous forest fuels and the merits of prescribed fire and alternatives for mitigating that problem. One such alternative is application of understory herbicides and anecdotal evidence suggests they may either exacerbate or lessen the fuel accumulation problem. In 1998, a study was initiated in northern Florida to document changes in fuel characteristics in slash pine (Pinus elliottii) plantations treated with a mid-rotation understory herbicide and model their potential impacts on fire behavior. Field data showed unmanaged stands contained the highest loadings of understory fuels and in the first year after herbicide treatment, fuel loading did not change. In subsequent years, fuel loading rapidly decreased and remained low. Potential fire behavior, as predicted by BEHAVE, followed this fuel accumulation trend in that catastrophic stand-replacing fires were predicted for unmanaged and recently herbicided stands, and low-intensity surface fires for stands that had been herbicided several years prior.
	View and Print this Publication (56 KB)
Publication Notes:	We recommend that you also print this page and attach it to the printout of the article, to retain the full citation information. This article was written and prepared by U.S. Government employees on official time, and is therefore in the public domain. Our on-line publications are scanned and captured using Adobe Acrobat. During the capture process some typographical errors may occur. Please contact the SRS Webmaster, srswebmaster@fs.fed.us if you notice any errors which make this publication unuseable.
	Get the latest version of the Adobe Acrobat reader or Acrobat Reader for Windows with Search and Accessibility