Comparative analysis of fuel loads in the area affected by fire and without fire in Malinaltepec, Guerrero

Abstract

Forest fires are one of the factors that contribute to climate change, among the components that form the fire triangle, fuel is the only factor that can be manipulated. The objective of this work was to estimate the load of forest fuels in Mg ha-¹ in an area burned in 2015 and another area without fire. For the evaluation of forest fuel, three sampling sites were established in each of the areas, the woody material was counted by delay time (1, 10, 100 and 1000 h) according to the technique of planar intersections; at the end of each line, litter (h) and mulch (m) were collected in 0.09 m². Tests were carried out to contrast the general fuel load and by type between ecosystems; Tukey's means comparison test was used to contrast the fuels in a given area, finally the woody material (ml), mulch (m) and litter (h) were correlated with the total load (ct), litter depth (ph) and mulch depth (ph) using Pearson correlation tests. The total fuel load was 53.10 Mg ha-¹ in the burned area, while the area without fire showed a load of 27.26 Mg ha-¹ without significant differences (p = 0.114). On the comparison of loads by delay time, the fuel of 1, 10 and 100 h showed a higher load in the burned area, although it was not significant (p > 0.05); the analysis by component showed a higher litter load in the non-burned area with 12.90 Mg ha-¹ (p = 0.015) and the woody material was statistically higher in the burned area with 35.95 Mg ha-¹ (p = 0.024). The correlation of variables showed an r = 0.95 between the woody material and the total load; followed by leaf litter and mulch (r = 0.80); on the contrary, the total load in the non-burned area showed a correlation with the mulch and leaf litter (r = 0.89 and 0.83). The forest fire contributed to the reduction of litter and mulch but maximized the load of woody fuel.