What type of fire can be high intensity and difficult to control due to woody debris?

A complex fire is characterized by features that combine various fire behaviors and conditions, often involving multiple factors that can make it particularly challenging to manage. The presence of woody debris significantly contributes to this complexity, as it can ignite and sustain higher intensity burns, leading to conditions that are unpredictable and potentially dangerous for control efforts.

In complex fires, the interaction among different fuel types, including woody debris, live vegetation, and the underlying ground, can result in transitions between fire behaviors such as surface and crown fires. This variability increases the difficulty for firefighting response teams, as they must contend with shifting fire dynamics and the potential for rapid fire spread.

Surface fires generally burn along the ground and engage low-lying vegetation, while ground fires occur beneath the surface in organic matter, such as peat. Torching fires refer to individual trees that ignite and burn, creating intense heat but do not encompass the broader difficulties of fuel intermixing seen in complex fires.

Given the intense nature and the variety of behaviors associated with complex fires, especially when influenced by difficult fuels such as woody debris, this answer is well-suited to describe the type of fire in question.