LAUSR

Live fuel moisture content (LFMC), the ratio of water mass to dry mass of living shoots, is a primary driver of wildfire activity (Chandler et al. 1983; Dennison andMoritz 2009; Nolan et al. 2016) and fuel flammability (Marino et al. 2012; Rossa et al. 2016; Fares et al. 2017 Ruffault et al. 2018). LFMC is an input variable in several fire behavior models (Sullivan 2009; Alexander and Cruz 2013) and is often implicitly accounted for in fire hazard indices in Mediterranean areas (e.g. Viegas et al. 1999; Ruffault and Mouillot 2017). Despite the importance of LFMC for a wide range of wildfire research studies, its estimation at stand to landscape scales is still highly uncertain, because LFMC results from complex interactions between the antecedent and concurrent weather and several biological mechanisms that influence water content (i.e. plant water relations) and dry matter accumulation (i.e. carbon allocation at the leaf level) (Turner 1981; Jolly et al. 2014). There is therefore a need for robust and longterm LFMC datasets to improve our understanding of LFMC variations and refine our predictions. In 1996, the French organization in charge of protection of the Mediterranean forest (DPFM) initiated the systematic measurement of LFMC to improve its operational fire danger rating system during the fire season. Weekly measurements have been performed in various sites and shrub species over the fire-prone French Mediterranean. This operational network, called the “Reseau Hydrique” (what could be translated as “hydric network”) has been operated by the National Forest Service (Office National des Forêts (ONF)) since then. To date, the “Reseau Hydrique” produced a dataset that includes 584 “Sites × Years”, on 24 species, with 7 to 20 measurement dates per year. In addition, rainfall amounts during the fire season have been recorded since 2009 on some sites. The raw dataset is currently available on demand via the Reseau Hydrique website but, in its current form, cannot be easily used for scientific purposes for several reasons: (i) the database is not referenced (i.e. does not have a DOI); (ii) information is in French only; (iii) the labels and names of sampling sites and species names are not always consistent; (iv) outliers, duplications and inconsistencies in LFMC data have not been corrected; (v) measurement uncertainties (confidence levels) are not provided.