In July 2016, the USFS PSW Region Fire and Aviation Management (FAM) tasked the Fire Behavior Assessment Team (FBAT) to help in assessing the effects of an upsurge in tree mortality on fire behavior in the southern Sierra Nevada. The Cedar Fire ignited on Tuesday August 16th, 2016, at approximately 1600 on the Sequoia National Forest in the southern Sierra Nevada. The FBAT arrived on the fire on August 18th and conducted field work Aug. 19-30th. FBAT worked for 13 days on the Cedar Fire installing and collecting fuel and fire behavior data on plots. FBAT also collected and delivered fire weather and behavior observations to the Incident Management Team (IMT) and characterized tree and shrub foliar moisture. The last day of the tour, FBAT collected tree-mortality map evaluation data.

The Pacific Southwest Region asked FBAT to answer the question, “What is the actual fire behavior in tree mortality areas?” FBAT’s goal coming into fire season was to collect short-turnaround intelligence on fuel/weather/topography/fire behavior conditions to support Fire Behavior Analysts (FBAN) and Long Term Analysts (LTAN) on current and future incidents by helping analysts improve fire behavior predictions in areas experiencing high tree mortality levels.