Relative importance of fuel management, ignition management and weather for area burned: evidence from five landscape - fire - succession models

. The behaviour of five landscape fire models (CAFÉ, FIRESCAPE, LAMOS(HS), LANDSUM and SEM- LAND) was compared in a standardised modelling experiment. The importance of fuel management approach, fuel management effort, ignition management effort and weather in determining variation in area burned and number of edge pixels burned (a measure,of potential impact on assets adjacent to fire-prone landscapes) was quantified for a standardised modelling,landscape. Importance was measured,as the proportion of variation in area or edge pixels burned,explained by each factor and all interactions among,them. Weather and ignition management,were consistently more,important for explaining variation in area burned than fuel management approach and effort, which were found to be statistically unimportant. For the number of edge pixels burned, weather and ignition management were generally more important than fuel management,approach,and effort. Increased ignition management,effort resulted in decreased,area burned in all models,and decreased number,of edge pixels burned,in three models. The findings demonstrate,that year-to-year variation in weather and the success of ignition management,consistently prevail over the effects of fuel management,on area burned in a range of modelled,ecosystems. Additional keywords: CAFÉ, fire management, FIRESCAPE, LAMOS, LANDSUM, model comparison, SEM-LAND,