5–15.2 m); a dbh of 15 cm (mean of 15 trees, range8–23 cm) and a stem density of ca 3600 ha−1. The surface vegetation within the forest was dominated by needle-litter and a dense cover of mosses with Hylocomium splendens (Hedw.) Schimp. and Pleurozium schreberi (Willd. ex Brid.) Mitt. dominant and Hypnum cupressiforme Hedw., Dicranum scoparium Hedw., Plagiothecium undulatum (Hedw.) Schimp. and Polytrichum spp. frequent. Diplophyllum albicans (L.) Dumort. was observed on peat banks. The soil over the majority of the site was shallow peat (20–50 cm) above a stony/gravelly granite bed. The ground within the forest had been ploughed before planting with furrows cut

through to the underlying mineral material. Trees were planted on mounded peat which was coarsely mixed in places with mineralsubsoil and this website stones brought to the surface by ploughing. Weather data for the year of the wildfire were obtained, courtesy of the Met Office, for the Aviemore weather station, located approximately 9 km to the NW of the fire ground. Data were used to examine patterns in rainfall, temperature and humidity in the lead-up to the wildfire and to calculate fuel moisture codes

and fire danger indices (Table 1) from the FWI system. selleck inhibitor The FWI system underlies the UK Met Office Fire Severity Index which is currently implemented in Wales and England to forecast “exceptional” fire weather conditions (Kitchen et al., 2006). The codes and indices were calculated using temperature, Metformin manufacturer humidity and wind speed measured at 12:00 local time and with total daily rainfall. We used the “fume” package (Santander Meteorology Group, 2012) in R (R Development Core Team, 2012) to calculate FWI system codes and indices. The DMC and DC have long lag times (12 and 52 days respectively) so we calculated

values starting from the 1st January 2006 (199 days prior to the fire). Long-term weather data were obtained from the National Climate Information Centre (Met Office n.d.). Peat fuel consumption was estimated using a four-stage processes: 1. Cores were extracted from ground fuels in burnt and unburnt areas in order to determine pre-fire fuel structure. Eight peat cores were taken with a 5 cm × 5 cm box corer during the first site visit. Four cores were taken from lightly burnt areas (i.e. with litter or duff layer still intact) within the fire area and four from outside the burn perimeter but within ca. 10 m of the edge of the fire. Cores from burnt areas had been subject to flaming fire spreading through the litter layer but did not show signs of peat or duff consumption. A major issue in post-fire fuel reconstruction is that unburnt fuels may differ substantially from those in areas that burnt – such differences determining the position of the fire perimeter. Taking cores in fuels remaining within the burnt area allowed us to compare their structure to those that were not subject to any fire.