Fuel & Fire Tools (FFT)
Overview & Applicability
Fuel and Fire Tools (FFT) is a software application that integrates several fire management tools, including the Fuel Characteristics Classification System (FCCS - version 4.0), Consume (version 5.0), Fire Emission Production Simulator (FEPS - version 2.0), Pile Calculator, and Digital Photo Series into a single user interface.
Fuelbeds vary widely in their physical attributes, potential fire behavior, and fire effects. The FFT suite of tools uses fuels data classified into fuelbeds to predict a suite of outputs related to prescribed and wildland fire. These outputs include several variables relevant to carbon accounting and quantification, such as estimations of carbon stores for different fuelbeds, carbon flux from fire (before/after carbon estimations), and carbon emissions. It also predicts fire behavior attributes that can be used to evaluate fuel treatment effectiveness. The fuelbeds are designed to represent the diversity of fuels found throughout the United States.
Installation Instructions
- Download FFT (Latest version (10/18/2023): 2.0.2033, 53MB)
All available versions
For Internet Explorer users, right click the link and select Save As. Specify a folder location to save the FFT installation file. - Locate the downloaded executable file (named using the convention: FuelFireTools_yyyy_mm_ddv#.exe) and double-click to run the installation/extraction utility. The default installation is C:\FuelFireTools. You can change the location or name of the folder, but it is not advisable to do so because there may be potential write privilege issues.
Installation notes:
- FFT runs on Microsoft Windows operating systems (version 7 or higher), and requires Microsoft .NET libraries (version 4 or higher, generally included in Windows installation) and Java (version 1.6 / 6 or higher).
- If you already have FFT installed, refer to the version number given in the upper right-hand corner of the Fuelbed Selector screen to see if you need to update to the current version. If your version is out of date, we recommend that you either save FFT to a new folder location or delete your existing FuelFireTools folder before installing the new version.Before deleting your old FuelFireTools folder, consider saving copies of any custom fuelbeds, burn units and environmental inputs. Existing custom fuelbeds, burn units (.bu) and environmental inputs (.ev files) can be copied into the FuelFireTools\UserFiles folder.
- Java is needed to run the calculators in FFT. The most common runtime errors are that a Java is missing, needs to be updated, or is installed in an unusual file location. You can check your Java version and download a free update at: https://www.java.com/download.
Documentation
Fuel & Fire Tools (FFT)
- Factsheet
- Quick Start Guide
- Online Help
- Workshop presentations:
- Introduction to fuel characterization and smoke management tools including the Fuel and Fire Tools, Digital Photo Series, Piled Biomass Calculator and BlueSky Playground. This presentation was given as part of a workshop, "Smoke Modeling from Forest to Plume" at the the Association of Fire Ecology's 8th International Fire conference in Tuscon, AZ in December 2019.
- A basic exercise demonstrating how existing fuelbeds in FFT can be customized to represent a stand-replacement burn in mixed conifer forests.
- An exercise to demonstrate how FFT can be used to evaluate fire behavior and consumption for different management activities including thinning and thinning followed by prescribed burning.
- Evaluation of fuelbeds within FFT that represent insect damage in white spruce forests of Canada and Alaska.
- A simple way to calculate greenhouse gas and carbon fluxes from wildland fire events using FFT.
The Fuel Characteristic Classification System (FCCS)The Fuel Characteristic Classification System (FCCS, current version 4.0) stores and classifies fuels data as fuelbeds and calculates fuel loadings, carbon and other summary fuel characteristics. It predicts surface fire behavior and a 0-9 index of surface, crown fire and available fuel potentials. The FCCS is also available as a command line version and as a module in IFT-DSS.
ConsumeConsume (current version 5.0) predicts total fuel consumption, pollutant emissions, and heat release based on input fuel loadings, fuel moisture, and other environmental factors. It is also available as a command line version and as a module within BlueSky, IFT-DSS and WFEIS.
- Factsheet
- Published manuscripts:
- Prichard et al., 2014. Evaluation of the Consume and FOFEM fuel consumption models in pine and mixed hardwood forests of the eastern United States.
- Prichard et al., 2017. Predicting forest floor and woody fuel consumption from prescribed burns in southern and western pine ecosystems of the United States.
- Consume 3.0 User's Guide
- Command line instructions
The Fire Emission Production Simulator (FEPS)The Fire Emission Production Simulator (FEPS version 2.0) predicts hourly fuel consumption, pollutant emissions, and heat release characteristics of prescribed burns and wildland fires. The FEPS calculator module can be run in command line and has been integrated into BlueSky, IFT-DSS, and V-Smoke.
Pile CalculatorThe Piled Fuels Biomass and Emissions Calculator (Pile Calculator for short) is integrated within the FFT’s Fuelbed Editor to allow the creation and editing of pile information within fuelbeds. It is also available as a web-based tool or stand-alone tool on the FERA website.
Digital Photo Series (DPS)The Digital Photo Series (DPS) is a web-based application that provides access to the Natural Fuels Photo Series database and photographs. The DPS works through a user’s Internet browser, providing a user-friendly interface to browse, query, and download photo series data and high-quality photographs. The DPS can be launched within the FFT fuelbed editor for reference purposes.