Data from: Biomass consumption by surface fires across Earth's most fire prone continent

Landscape fire is a key but poorly understood component of the global
carbon cycle. Predicting biomass consumption by fire at large spatial
scales is essential to understanding carbon dynamics and hence how fire
management can reduce greenhouse gas emissions and increase ecosystem
carbon storage. An Australia‐wide field‐based survey (at 113 locations)
across large‐scale macroecological gradients (climate, productivity and
fire regimes) enabled estimation of how biomass combustion by surface fire
directly affects continental‐scale carbon budgets. In terms of biomass
consumption, we found clear trade‐offs between the frequency and severity
of surface fires. In temperate southern Australia, characterised by less
frequent and more severe fires, biomass consumed per fire was typically
very high. In contrast, surface fires in the tropical savannas of northern
Australia were very frequent but less severe, with much lower consumption
of biomass per fire (about a quarter of that in the far south). When
biomass consumption was expressed on an annual basis, biomass consumed was
far greater in the tropical savannas (>20 times that of the far
south). This trade‐off is also apparent in the ratio of annual carbon
consumption to net primary production (NPP). Across Australia's
naturally vegetated land area, annual carbon consumption by surface fire
is equivalent to about 11% of NPP, with a sharp contrast between temperate
southern Australia (6%) and tropical northern Australia (46%). Our results
emphasise that fire management to reduce greenhouse gas emissions should
focus on fire prone tropical savanna landscapes, where the vast bulk of
biomass consumption occurs globally. In these landscapes, grass biomass is
a key driver of frequency, intensity and combustion completeness of
surface fires, and management actions that increase grass biomass are
likely to lead to increases in greenhouse gas emissions from savanna
fires.