You are a fire management officer for the USDA Forest Service outside of Bend, Oregon. The lodgepole pine forests in your district have experienced high mortality from ongoing bark beetle outbreaks and a prolonged regional drought. These forests are dominated by lodgepole pine with scattered ponderosa pine, and most sites have high woody fuel loadings associated with recent tree mortality.

The district ranger has asked you to evaluate the fuel conditions and fire hazard of these lodgepole pine forests and develop a treatment plan that includes forest thinning and prescribed fire.

You have already used the Natural Fuels Photo Series to estimate fuel loadings and other characteristics for this site.  Use the Fuel Characteristic Classification System (FCCS) to create a custom fuelbed for this site and evaluate the calculated fuel characteristics and estimated fire potentials for this site.

Tip:  members of the Fire and Environmental Applications Team actually visited the site photographed below and took field measurements of the fuels to compare with estimations in the photo series.

Oregon Field Site: