An FMA Plus® Workbook

Exercises in Using DDWoodyPC®, CrownMass®

and

Accessory Programs

II. Canopy Fuels and Fire Behavior

with

CrownMass®

S.G. Pickford

February 2007

Additional Edits: Art Benefiel

2009, 2010, 2011

© Washington Institute

PO Box 1108, Duvall, WA 98019

www.washingtoninstitute.net

FMAPlus® Workbook

II. Canopy Fuels and Fire Behavior

with CrownMass®

FMAPlus®1

This workbook grew out of Washington Institute’s series of classes in fuels inventory and analysis techniques, and the Fuels and Fire Behavior module of Washington Institutes’ Technical Fire Management. Students learning to use sophisticated software such as FMAPlus® need hands-on practice, and the usual way to get it is through example problems. This workbook contains a number of example situations for which students can enter and analyze data. Each exercise has one or more questions with ‘school’ answers provided, and hints as to what to do if student answers don’t match. The intent is to familiarize students with the ‘look and feel’ of FMAPlus® and at the same time examine the models that are built into the system and learn how they operate.

FMAPlus® is the product of Fire Program Solutions, LLC and was developed by Don Carlton and others to replace and integrate a number of spreadsheets that he and others had developed for fuels analysis tasks. FMAPlus® provides users an accurate up-to-date tool for accomplishing most fuels analysis tasks.

FMAPlus® contains several programs, two of which form the system’s core.

DDWoodyPC® accepts, stores and processes field inventory data for surface fuels.

CrownMass® accepts overstory data, computes surface fuel resulting from canopy manipulations, imports surface fuel inventory data, and estimates the fire behavior and fire effects that would be produced by the entire fuel complex under user-defined environmental conditions.

FMAPlus® is as powerful as any of the available fire behavior calculators, and is much more tightly integrated than most. Many fuels analysis problems can be analyzed from start to finish without ever exiting the FMA programs.Fuels inventory data can be entered, reduced and archived; environmental data (weather, slope, etc.) are easily entered and manipulated; predicting fire behavior, including canopy fire behavior and spotting, can be done conveniently; and potential mortality using the FOFEM fire effects models is a mouse-click away. Other programs are available and have their uses, but FMAPlus® works well in our teaching environment. Therefore, it is the software of choice for Washington Institute’s Fuels Quantification and Analysis classes, and Technical Fire Management.