Comparing biomass consumption estimated from point cloud data versus long-wave infrared imagery during prescribed growing season burns in pine woodlands of the southeastern United States

Benjamin C. Bright; Andrew T. Hudak; Nuria Sánchez-López; E. Louise Loudermilk; Christie M. Hawley; Eric Rowell; Joseph J. O’Brien; Steven A. Flanagan; Kevin Robertson; Akira Kato; Chad Hoffman; David R. Weise; J. Kevin Hiers

doi:10.1071/WF24210

RESEARCH ARTICLE (Open Access)

Next Contents Vol 34(7)

Comparing biomass consumption estimated from point cloud data versus long-wave infrared imagery during prescribed growing season burns in pine woodlands of the southeastern United States

Benjamin C. Bright

^A ^* , Andrew T. Hudak ^A , Nuria Sánchez-López ^A , E. Louise Loudermilk ^B , Christie M. Hawley ^B , Eric Rowell ^C , Joseph J. O’Brien ^B , Steven A. Flanagan

^B , Kevin Robertson ^D , Akira Kato ^E , Chad Hoffman ^F , David R. Weise

^G and J. Kevin Hiers ^H

+ Author Affiliations

- Author Affiliations

^A Rocky Mountain Research Station, USDA Forest Service, Moscow, ID 83843, USA.

^B Southern Research Station, USDA Forest Service, Athens, GA 30602, USA.

^C Air Resources Board, California Environmental Protection Agency, Davis, CA 92507, USA.

^D Tall Timbers Research Station, Tallahassee, FL 32312, USA.

^E Graduate School of Horticulture, Chiba University, Chiba, 271-8510, Japan.

^F Department of Forest and Rangeland Stewardship, Colorado State University, Fort Collins, CO 80521, USA.

^G Pacific Southwest Research Station, USDA Forest Service, Riverside, CA 92508, USA.

^H Natural Resources Institute, Texas A&M University, Washington, DC, 20006, USA.

^* Correspondence to: benjamin.c.bright@usda.gov

International Journal of Wildland Fire 34, WF24210 https://doi.org/10.1071/WF24210

Submitted: 3 December 2024 Accepted: 26 May 2025 Published: 18 June 2025

© 2025 The Author(s) (or their employer(s)). Published by CSIRO Publishing on behalf of IAWF. This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License (CC BY-NC-ND)

Abstract

Background

Researchers have developed technologies for fine-scale characterization of fuels via laser scanning and fine-scale measurement of surface fire behavior via terrestrial long-wave infrared (LWIR) imaging. Few studies have compared these technologies for their ability to estimate fuel consumption.

Aims

Here we compare fuel consumption estimated from point cloud data with fuel consumption estimated from LWIR imagery collected during prescribed burns of pine woodlands in the southeastern United States.

Methods

We adapted existing methods to estimate and map pre- and post-fire fuels and fuel consumption across several prescribed burn units. We related mapped estimates of fuel consumption to coincident estimates of fuel consumption based on energy release calculations derived from LWIR imaging.

Key results

Fuel consumption estimated from point cloud data was positively and significantly related to LWIR-derived consumption estimates at LWIR plots (R² = 0.72, n = 14).

Conclusions

We demonstrate a methodology for mapping fuel consumption from laser scanning data that provides consumption estimates comparable to those of LWIR imagery.

Implications

Our findings highlight the relative importance of both surface and understory fuels to fire effects in fire-dependent pine woodlands of the southeastern United States, and the need for more research examining relationships between LWIR imagery and combusted fuels.

Keywords: airborne laser scanning, fire radiative energy, fuel consumption mapping, fuel mapping, litter, long-wave infrared imagery, North America, pine woodlands, predictive modeling, prescribed fire, remote sensing, southeastern United States, surface fire, terrestrial laser scanning, understory fuel.

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