Abstract
Foliar live fuel moisture (LFM)—the weight of water in living plant foliage expressed as a percentage of dry weight—typically affects fire behavior in live wildland fuels. In juniper communities, juniper LFM is important for planning prescribed burns and wildfire response but can be time consuming to obtain regularly. Also, there has been little analysis of the ways in which juniper LFM varies seasonally or is affected by weather conditions, soil moisture, or other variables such as drought index. Using an eight-year dataset of Ashe juniper (Juniperus ashei J. Buchholz) LFM observations from four sites in central Texas, USA, we found that the interannual variability of Ashe juniper LFM differs among seasons. Throughout the eight-year sample period, winter LFM fluctuated within a narrow range between about 80% and 120% and was weakly related to Keetch-Byram Drought Index (KBDI). During summer, LFM fluctuated widely and was more strongly related to KBDI. KBDI below 315 was positively related to LFM, while KBDI above 526 was strongly negatively related to LFM. For this region, we offer a KBDI of about 500 as a threshold for fire planning, above which the potential for critically low Ashe juniper LFM becomes more likely.
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