We present an overview of the Fuel Characteristic Classification System (FCCS), a tool that enables land managers, regulators, and scientists to create and catalogue fuelbeds and to classify those fuelbeds for their capacity to support fire and consume fuels. The fuelbed characteristics and fire classification from this tool will provide inputs for current and future sophisticated models for the quantification of fire behavior, fire effects, and carbon accounting and enable assessment of fuel treatment effectiveness. The system was designed from requirements provided by land managers, scientists, and policy makers gathered through six regional workshops. The FCCS contains a set of fuelbeds representing the United States, which were compiled from scientific literature, fuels photo series, fuels data sets, and expert opinion. The system enables modification and enhancement of these fuelbeds to represent a particular scale of interest. The FCCS then reports assigned and calculated fuel characteristics for each existing fuelbed stratum including the canopy, shrubs, nonwoody, woody, litter–lichen–moss, and duff. Finally, the system classifies each fuelbed by calculating fire potentials that provide an index of the intrinsic capacity of each fuelbed to support surface fire behavior, support crown fire, and provide fuels for flaming, smoldering, and residual consumption. The FCCS outputs are being used in a national wildland fire emissions inventory and in the development of fuelbed, fire hazard, and treatment effectiveness maps on several national forests. Although the FCCS was built for the United States, the conceptual framework is applicable worldwide.

Wildland fuelbed characteristics are temporally and spatially complex and can vary widely across regions. To capture this variability, we designed the Fuel Characteristic Classification System (FCCS), a national system to create fuelbeds and classify those fuelbeds for their capacity to support fire and consume fuels. This paper describes the structure of the fuelbeds internal to FCCS. Fuelbeds are considered relatively homogeneous units on the landscape, representing distinct combustion environments that determine potential fire behaviour and effects. The FCCS fuelbeds are organized into six strata: canopy, shrubs, nonwoody fuels, woody fuels, litter-lichen-moss, and ground fuels. Fuelbeds are described by several qualitative and quantitative physical and biological variables with emphasis on characteristics useful for fuels management and fire behaviour planning. The FCCS includes 216 fuelbeds that represent the major vegetation types of the United States. The FCCS fuelbeds can be used as presented or modified to create customized fuelbeds with general or site-specific data to address fire science management or research questions. This system allows resource managers to evaluate wildland fuels operations and management activities, fire hazard, and ecological and air quality impacts at small and large spatial scales. The FCCS fuelbeds represent the United States, although the system has the potential for building fuelbeds for international application.Résumé : Les caractéristiques des couches de combustibles en milieu naturel sont complexes dans le temps et l'espace et peuvent varier énormément d'une région à l'autre. Dans le but de saisir cette variabilité, nous avons élaboré le système de classification des caractéristiques des combustibles (SCCC), un système national pour créer et classer ces couches de combustibles selon leur capacité à supporter un feu et à consumer des combustibles. Cet article décrit la structure des couches de combustibles intrinsèques au SCCC. Les couches de combustibles sont considérées comme des unités relativement homogènes dans le paysage et représentent des milieux de combustion distincts qui déterminent les effets et le comportement potentiel du feu. Les couches de combustibles du SCCC sont organisées en six strates : canopée, arbustes, combustibles non ligneux, combustibles ligneux, litière-lichens-mousses et combustibles au sol. Les couches de combustibles sont caractérisées par plusieurs variables physiques et biologiques qualitatives et quantitatives en mettant l'accent sur les caractéristiques utiles pour la gestion des combustibles et la planification du comportement du feu. Le SCCC inclut 216 couches de combustibles qui représentent les principaux types de végétation des É tats-Unis. Les couches de combustibles du SCCC peuvent être utilisées telles quelles ou modifiées pour créer des couches de combustibles sur mesure à partir de données générales ou spécifiques à une station pour s'attaquer à des problèmes de recherche ou de gestion en pyrologie forestière. Ce système perm...