A CRITICAL LOOK AT THE DATA PROBLEM IN STUDIES OF WILDLAND FLAMMABILITY,

A recently completed analysis of national wildland flammability encountered a number of serious deficiencies in the basic data needed to examine quantitative relationships between weather, fuels, and fire behavior. A fresh appraisal is made of the complex functional relationships among the many variables required to define the degree of fire danger. The relative values of the elemental variables are assessed, and the major deficiency, that of fuel quantification, is discussed in terms of current research programs. Author