In addition to estimating depth of burn, we recorded

the nature of the remaining substrate according to a number of categories: litter, moss, charred litter/moss, white ash, red ash or unburnt. As many trees showed either complete canopy scorch or had dropped their check details needles, we recorded the height of blackening of the trunk of the tree nearest to the monitoring point as a rough indicator of flaming fire intensity (Cain, 1984). The total number of trees within an area of 5 m radius around the sample position was counted as was the number of trees showing evidence of peat smouldering around their base. Total consumption of ground-fuel organic matter across the fire was estimated on the basis that the smouldering fire front was observed to be spreading horizontally beneath the ground surface, through the duff or upper peat, with the heat produced drying out and then igniting the duff and litter above. Estimates of the depth of pre and post fire fuel layers were made for each measurement point (where smouldering was observed) on each transect. LBH589 manufacturer Pre-fire fuel depth was estimated as the sum of the remaining and burn depths. The total fuel depth was then partitioned into different fuel layers on the basis of the generic fuel profile constructed from the analysis of peat cores. At each measurement point the depth of burn was sequentially attributed to each of the layers in the order moss/litter, duff, upper peat and lower peat. Pre-fire fuel properties

and mean depth of burn were calculated for each transect and an overall site mean calculated as the weighted average of the values for each transect. Standard errors of the site-level mean were calculated accounting for the unbalanced design. Pre-fire fuel load and the

mass of fuel consumed per unit area for each fuel layer were estimated by multiplying the bulk density of the layer in the generic profile by the average depth of burn. Variances in fuel depth, depth Staurosporine mw of burn and bulk density were combined as appropriate. We were unable to account for the variance in the carbon content of the fuel layers though this was assumed to be minimal by comparison with other errors. Carbon emissions were calculated assuming a carbon content of 48% for litter and duff (Legg et al., 2010) whilst the carbon content of the upper (54%) and lower (48%) layers of peat were estimated from their organic bulk density using the relationship developed for Scottish peat by Smith et al. (2007). Total consumption across the burn area was estimated using GPS mapping of the fire perimeter. The area burnt by smouldering combustion was estimated from the total fire area and the proportion of measurement points where smouldering was observed. Correlation analysis (Pearson’s correlation coefficient) was used to examine the relationship between pre- and post-fire peat fuel structure and peat consumption in measurement points where smouldering was observed. Statistical tests were completed in R 2.15.