2004 
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International Archives of the Photogrammetry, Remote Sensing 
Department of Agriculture for forest types of the western 
United States were adapted for use with the eastern 
deciduous forest communities that occur in Great Smoky 
Mountains National Park (Anderson, 1982). Extensive 
experience in fire management, long-term observation of fire 
behavior in vegetation communities of the park and 
familiarity with the Anderson fire fuel classification allowed 
NPS fire managers to correlate the 13 Anderson fire fuel 
classes with forest communities of the southern Appalachian 
Mountains. Classes were assigned based on characteristics 
such as the overstory community, the type and density of 
understory shrubs and the type and amount of leaf litter. 
This information was then used to develop a set of rules for 
fuel model classification given the combination of particular 
overstory and understory classes of the vegetation database. 
Figures 6 and 7 depict overstory and understory vegetation 
within a portion of Great Smoky Mountains National Park 
corresponding with the Calderwood (CALD) USGS 
topographic quadrangle (See location “a” in Fig. 1). Detailed 
vegetation classes of both overstory and understory were 
collapsed to generalize forest and shrub communities 
originally mapped as associations of individual species with 
over 170 classes to more general forest types containing 
approximately 25 classes. This facilitated the definition of 
rules for the assignment of fire fuel model classifications 
(Fig. 8). Level 1 rules assigned intersected polygons a whole 
number fuel class (0 to 13) according to the spatial 
coincidence of general overstory and understory vegetation 
types. For example, an intersected polygon consisting of a 
dry oak hardwood overstory with no appreciable understory 
vegetation was assigned a fuel model class of 8 — Closed 
Timber Litter, while a more moist hardwood overstory forest 
community coincident with a deciduous shrub understory 
was assigned a fuel model 9 — Hardwood Litter (Madden and 
Welch 2004). 
Calderwood Overstory Vegetation 
new num nam nae Dem 240008 
  
  
   
MOD 
  
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2 
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Figure 6. A portion of the overstory vegetation in Great 
Smoky Mountains National Park corresponding to the USGS 
7.5-minute Calderwood topographic quadrangle. 
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and Spatial Information Sciences, Vol XXXV, Part B4. Istanbul 2004 
Level 2 rules further refined the fire fuel classification 
system by accounting for the density of mountain laurel 
(Kalmia latifolia.) and Rhododendron (Rhododendron spp.). 
two prominent broadleaf evergreen shrubs found in the park. 
An intersected polygon containing scattered hardwoods in 
the overstory and light density mountain laurel shrubs in the 
understory would be assigned a Level 2 fuel model class of 
6.1, while the same overstory polygon with heavy density 
Rhododendron would be assigned a class of 6.6. Fire 
managers can thus distinguish both understory type and 
density from the assigned fire fuel classes which may prove 
useful for determining how to suppress a wild fire or when it 
might be appropriate to conduct a prescribed burn (Fig. 9). 
Calderwood Understory Vegetation 
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
  
      
i 
  
  
  
fint 
3 0 3 Kilometers A 
Ty ry - 
N 
Figure 7. A portion of the understory vegetation in Great 
Smoky Mountains National Park corresponding to the USGS 
7.5-minute Calderwood topographic quadrangle. 
| GIS/Cartographic Model to Produce Fuel Class May 
1 
I 
| 
A = 
  
  
   
    
  
  
Overstory Vegetation 
Rerlass 
Generalized 
Ouerstory Veg 
   
  
Understory-Veg 
Union 
  
  
   
  
  
Combined 
Overstory/Understory Veg 
Rule-Based! Recloss 
Fuel Class Map 
  
  
  
Figure 8. A schematic diagram of the GIS cartographic 
model used to produce the fuel class data sets.