Chat Moss along with Risley Moss and Holcroft Moss, is also a European Union designated Special Area of Conservation, known as Manchester Mosses. The major habitats in the moss are bog, heathland, woodland and acidic grassland, subject to varying degrees of wetness depending on the local drainage. The remaining areas of bog are dominated by common cottongrass "Eriophorum angustifolium" and hare's-tail cottongrass "E. vaginatum". Bog mosses are more scarce, but "Sphagnum cuspidatum", "S. recurvum", "S. tenellum", "S. fimbriatum" and "S. subnitens" occur in patches. As the peat has become drier, areas have been taken over by purple moor grass "Molinia caerulea" and
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