Fuel modelling in terrestrial ecosystems: An overview in the context of the development of an object-orientated database for wild fire analysis

Wildfires are a serious problem affecting many terrestrial ecosystems and causing substantial economic damage. Understanding the variation in structure of fuels (which are predominantly represented by plant litter and live vegetation) is key to understanding the behaviour of wildland fires. An understanding of changes to fuels as vegetation develops is also central to the management of both wildfire and the planning of prescribed burning. A description of fuel structure is required for all models of fire behaviour. It is therefore important that we have an appropriate system for describing fuel structure and predicting how fuel structure will develop through time (i.e. fuel succession). In this paper we review the range of published models used for fuel description and fuel succession. We propose an object-orientated database as an appropriate method for storing the complex data structures that are needed to process and analyse data on fuels. The potential advantages of an object-orientated database as a tool for modelling fuel succession are discussed.