How Does Soil Moisture Influence Grassland Fuel Moisture Content and Wildfire Danger in the Southern Great Plains?.

Fire is an integral part of many Southern Great Plain (SGP) ecosystems, but wildfires can cause major socio-economic losses as evidenced in 2016 Fort McMurray fire in Canada and the Anderson Creek fire in Kansas-Oklahoma. A critical variable influencing wildfire danger is fuel moisture content, but current fuel moisture content estimates based on weather data or remote sensing measurements are sometimes inaccurate. Improved estimates of fuel moisture content may be possible using measured soil moisture data since soil moisture is physically linked to the physiological characteristics of plants. The emergence of numerous soil moisture monitoring networks and increasingly advanced soil moisture satellites has created an opportunity to use soil moisture information for improved wildfire danger assessment. The objectives of this study are to reveal the relationship between soil moisture and grassland fuel moisture content in the SGP and to create a model for estimating grassland fuel moisture content using soil moisture measurements and supporting data