The amount, conditions, and structure of fuels that will burn if a fire enters an area.

A fuel complex, defined by volume, type, condition, arrangement, and location, that determines the degree of ignition and of resistance to control. For example, the moisture content of the fuel will influence the ability of the fuel to catch and sustain fire (degree of ignition) and how difficult it will be to control or extinguish the fire (degree of control). Fire Management Activities Include fire planning, fire management strategies, tactics, and alternatives, prevention; preparedness, education, and addresses the role of mitigation, post-fire rehabilitation, fuels reduction, and restoration activities in fire management.

the potential fire behavior for a fuel type, regardless of the fuel type's weather-influenced fuel moisture content or its resistance to fireguard construction. Assessment is based on physical fuel characteristics, such as fuel arrangement, fuel load, condition of herbaceous vegetation, and presence of elevated fuels. Return to

The overall potential for wildfire in a vegetated ecosystem, often expressed as a condition of fuels on the ground and the probability of ignition. To reduce the fire hazard in an area, managers must deal primarily with the fine fuels on the surface of the forest floor and with the smaller diameter trees growing in the understory of a forest that provide a ladder to the larger, dominant overstory trees.

A fire hazard is any situation in which there is a greater than normal risk of harm to people or property due to fire. Fire hazards can take the form of ways that fires can easily start, such as a blocked cooling vent, or overloaded electrical system, ways fires can spread rapidly, such as an insufficiently protected fuel store or areas with high oxygen concentrations, or things which, in a fire, pose a hazard to people, such as materials that produce toxic fumes when heated or blocked fire exits.