SUMMER - MOIST

The Great Smoky Mountains National Park falls into the category of summer-moist. Annual precipitation is approximately 140 cm (55 inches), and is evenly distributed throughout the year. There is no dry season to speak of, although the warm temperatures of the summer months create more evapo-transpirative demand for plants. Stretching over 200,000 hectares (493,800 acres)of the Southern Appalachian Mountains, Great Smoky Mountains National Park is one of the largest protected areas in the eastern US. A primary goal of park management is to preserve the native plants and animals found in the park. In order to do so, it is necessary to preserve the natural processes that perpetuate them, including fire. To help counteract the negative impacts of fire exclusion the park has adopted a number of new fire-related policies. These include recognizing the role of naturally ignited wildfire in maintaining the health of Southern Appalachian ecosystems, establishing the management practices which include WFU, in which naturally ignited wildfires are allowed to burn in designated areas under prescribed conditions. Although the fire season is approximately 10 months long, natural ignitions tend to occur April through August.

In addition to being our only eastern US study area, it was our only site with extensive deciduous forest, which means that fire behavior fuel models must include “leaf-off” and “leaf-on” versions. Fuels data were originally developed by researchers at the University of Georgia for the leaf-off condition, which accurately represents fuels from approximately mid-October through mid-April. As such, it was necessary to adapt the leaf-off fuel models to approximate leaf-on conditions.

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