A fuel ladder or ladder fuel is a
firefighting
Firefighting is the act of extinguishing or preventing the spread of unwanted fires from threatening human lives and destroying property and the environment. A person who engages in firefighting is known as a firefighter.
Firefighters typically ...
term for live or dead
vegetation
Vegetation is an assemblage of plant species and the ground cover they provide. It is a general term, without specific reference to particular taxa, life forms, structure, spatial extent, or any other specific botanical or geographic character ...
that allows a
fire
Fire is the rapid oxidation of a material (the fuel) in the exothermic chemical process of combustion, releasing heat, light, and various reaction Product (chemistry), products.
At a certain point in the combustion reaction, called the ignition ...
to climb up from the
landscape
A landscape is the visible features of an area of land, its landforms, and how they integrate with natural or man-made features, often considered in terms of their aesthetic appeal.''New Oxford American Dictionary''. A landscape includes the ...
or
forest floor
The forest floor, also called detritus, duff and the O horizon, is one of the most distinctive features of a forest ecosystem. It mainly consists of shed vegetative parts, such as leaves, branches, bark, and stems, existing in various stage ...
into the tree
canopy
Canopy may refer to:
Plants
* Canopy (biology), aboveground portion of plant community or crop (including forests)
* Canopy (grape), aboveground portion of grapes
Religion and ceremonies
* Baldachin or canopy of state, typically placed over an a ...
.
Ladder fuel
FireWords Glossary of Fire Science Terminology, version 1.0.2 Common ladder fuels include tall grass
Poaceae () or Gramineae () is a large and nearly ubiquitous family of monocotyledonous flowering plants commonly known as grasses. It includes the cereal grasses, bamboos and the grasses of natural grassland and species cultivated in lawns an ...
es, shrub
A shrub (often also called a bush) is a small-to-medium-sized perennial woody plant. Unlike herbaceous plants, shrubs have persistent woody stems above the ground. Shrubs can be either deciduous or evergreen. They are distinguished from trees ...
s, and tree branch
A branch, sometimes called a ramus in botany, is a woody structural member connected to the central trunk (botany), trunk of a tree (or sometimes a shrub). Large branches are known as boughs and small branches are known as twigs. The term '' ...
es, both living and dead. The removal of fuel ladders is part of defensible space 'firescaping' practices.
Fire precautions
Potential fuel ladders should be removed to reduce the risk of fire bridging the gap to the canopy. To remove the ladder requires pruning any low limbs up to a minimum of 8 feet, and potentially as high as 15 feet. The required height depends on how low the branch tips hang, the steepness of slope, and the height and spacing of other nearby vegetation.
The desired result is to create a situation in which a low-burning fire could burn to the trunk of a tree, which is protected by its bark, without having thinner, more flammable branches, leaves
A leaf (plural, : leaves) is any of the principal appendages of a vascular plant plant stem, stem, usually borne laterally aboveground and specialized for photosynthesis. Leaves are collectively called foliage, as in "autumn foliage", wh ...
or needles within easy reach of the fire.
Other fuel ladders
Apart from tree limbs, anything that would help that fire move up into the tree canopy is a fuel ladder. This includes shrubs and even tall grass or weeds. Non-vegetation fuel sources such as woodpiles, wooden fenceposts and structures should also be considered.
The intent is to maintain a break in vertical and horizontal continuity so that, if for example a woodpile caught fire, it would not be positioned next to shrubs or directly under trees that could then easily catch fire.
See also
*Fire control
Fire control is the practice of reducing the heat output of a fire, reducing the area over which the fire exists, or suppressing or extinguishing the fire by depriving it of fuel, oxygen, or heat (see fire triangle). Fire prevention and control i ...
*Defensible space (fire control)
A defensible space, in the context of fire control, is a natural and/or landscaped area around a structure that has been maintained and designed to reduce fire danger. The practice is sometimes called firescaping. "Defensible space" is also used i ...
*Fire ecology
Fire ecology is a scientific discipline concerned with natural processes involving fire in an ecosystem and the ecological effects, the interactions between fire and the abiotic and biotic components of an ecosystem, and the role as an ecosystem p ...
*Firefighting
Firefighting is the act of extinguishing or preventing the spread of unwanted fires from threatening human lives and destroying property and the environment. A person who engages in firefighting is known as a firefighter.
Firefighters typically ...
*Limbing
Limbing or delimbing is the process of removing branches from a standing or fallen tree trunk.
In logging, limbing follows felling.
Limbing plays a role in fire prevention by removing branches from live trees that can otherwise serve as part of ...
*Wildfire
A wildfire, forest fire, bushfire, wildland fire or rural fire is an unplanned, uncontrolled and unpredictable fire in an area of Combustibility and flammability, combustible vegetation. Depending on the type of vegetation present, a wildfire ...
*Wildfire suppression
Wildfire suppression is a range of firefighting tactics used to suppress wildfires. Firefighting efforts in wild land areas require different techniques, equipment, and training from the more familiar structure fire fighting found in populated ...
References
External links
CAL-FIRE: Homepage + Links
Official CA State Board of Forestry and Fire Protection website.
CA State Board of Forestry and Fire Protection: "General Guidelines for Creating Defensible Space"
- ''Official Santa Barbara County Fire Department Website''
Santa Barbara County Fire Department: "Landscape 'Firescape' Checklist"
{{DEFAULTSORT:Fuel Ladder
Wildfire suppression
Wildfire ecology
Sustainable forest management
Forest ecology
Environmental terminology
Gardening aids
Sustainable gardening
Wildfires