Chat Moss it for agriculture. About of degraded bog remain, with of undamaged peat deposits in four former peat extraction sites. The peat varies in depth between and . The main bog mosses found in the peat of Chat Moss are "Sphagnum cuspidatum", "S. imbricatum", and "S. acutifolia". The peat up to about from the surface is mainly humidified "S. acutifolia", with fresher "S. imbricatum" peat nearer the surface. A area of Chat Moss, to the north of the Liverpool–Manchester railway line, notified as Astley & Bedford Mosses, was designated a Site of Special Scientific Interest in 1989. Astley & Bedford Mosses,
Fuel model their ability to support Wild-land fire and the degree to which such a fire would consume the fuel lying within the bed. Regionally developed by teams of experts, these models were “compiled from scientific literature, fuels photo series, fuels data sets, and expert opinion.” In addition to the standard dead and live components, the FCCS scheme reports assigned and calculated fuel characteristics for each existing fuel bed stratum including the canopy, shrubs, non-woody, woody, litter-lichen-moss, and duff,” allowing a more comprehensive analysis of material within a fuel bed. Furthermore, “the system classifies each fuel bed by calculating fire potentials that