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Full-Text Articles in Forest Sciences
Graduate Research Innovation Awards Encourage Young Scientists To Ask Bold Questions, Gail Wells
Graduate Research Innovation Awards Encourage Young Scientists To Ask Bold Questions, Gail Wells
Joint Fire Science Program Digests
The Joint Fire Science Program (JFSP), in partnership with the Association for Fire Ecology, offers Graduate Research Innovation (GRIN) awards yearly to a handful of top-quality graduate students conducting research in fire science. GRIN awards are intended to nurture the next generation of fire and fuels scientists and managers, enhance their professional development, help them become engaged with their community of peers, and equip them to tackle the fire and fuels management challenges of today and tomorrow. To earn a GRIN award, master’s and doctoral students are invited to submit succinct four-page proposals for original research in fire ecology, management, …
Building Trust, Establishing Credibility, And Communicating Fire Issues With The Public, Josh Mcdaniel
Building Trust, Establishing Credibility, And Communicating Fire Issues With The Public, Josh Mcdaniel
Joint Fire Science Program Digests
With more people than ever living in the vicinity of the wildland-urban interface, communicating wildland fire management activities and building trust with the public is paramount for safety. Although the time and resources it takes to build and maintain the public’s trust may seem daunting, it may be one of the most important factors determining the long-term viability of a fire management program. Trust is built over time through personal relationships with citizens and communities and also by demonstrating competence and establishing credibility. When trust and confidence have been established, managers can enjoy strong support of fire and fuels management …
Climate Change Tipping Points: A Point Of No Return?, Elise Lequire
Climate Change Tipping Points: A Point Of No Return?, Elise Lequire
Joint Fire Science Program Digests
Summer 2012 saw records fall for intensity of drought and number, size, and cost of wildfires in the Central and Western United States, and the climate forecast calls for more of the same in the near and distant future. When wildfire breaks out, emergency responders decide their immediate strategy based on past experience and quick judgment calls. But in the long term, land managers need to plan for a warmer climate on a time scale of decades, or even a century or more, to better reflect the life span of trees and forests. Studies supported by the Joint Fire Science …
Capturing Fire: Rxcadre Takes Fire Measurements To Whole New Level, Gail Wells
Capturing Fire: Rxcadre Takes Fire Measurements To Whole New Level, Gail Wells
Joint Fire Science Program Digests
Models of fire behavior and effects do not always make accurate predictions, and there is not enough systematically gathered data to validate them. To help advance fire behavior and fire effects model development, the Joint Fire Science Program is helping fund the RxCADRE, which is made up of scientists from the U.S. Forest Service and several universities who orchestrate and collect data on prescribed burns in the southeastern United States. The RxCADRE-prescribed burns are yielding a comprehensive dataset of fire behavior, fire effects, and smoke chemistry and dynamics, with measurements taken systematically at multiple, cascading scales. RxCADRE data will help …
Bark Beetles And Fire: Two Forces Of Nature Transforming Western Forests, Gail Wells
Bark Beetles And Fire: Two Forces Of Nature Transforming Western Forests, Gail Wells
Joint Fire Science Program Digests
Bark beetles are chewing a wide swath through forests across North America. Over the past few years, infestations have become epidemic in lodgepole and spruce-fir forests of the Intermountain West. The resulting extensive acreages of dead trees are alarming the public and raising concern about risk of severe fire. Researchers supported by the Joint Fire Science Program (JFSP) are examining the complicated relationship between bark beetles and wildfire, the two most influential natural disturbance agents in these forests. Are the beetles setting the stage for larger, more severe wildfires? And are fires bringing on beetle epidemics? Contrary to popular opinion, …
Cheating Cheatgrass: New Research To Combat A Wily Invasive Weed, Gail Wells
Cheating Cheatgrass: New Research To Combat A Wily Invasive Weed, Gail Wells
Joint Fire Science Program Digests
Cheatgrass and its cousin, red brome, are exotic annual grasses that have invaded and altered ecosystem dynamics in more than 41 million acres of desert shrublands between the Rockies and the Cascade-Sierra chain. A fungus naturally associated with these Bromus species has been found lethal to the plants’ soil-banked dormant seeds. Supported by the Joint Fire Science Program (JFSP), researchers Susan Meyer, Phil Allen, and Julie Beckstead cultured this fungus, Pyrenophora semeniperda, in the laboratory and developed an experimental field application that, in some trials, killed all the dormant soil-banked Bromus seeds, leaving none to germinate the following year. The …
Smoke Science Plan: The Path Forward, Elise Lequire, Molly Hunter
Smoke Science Plan: The Path Forward, Elise Lequire, Molly Hunter
Joint Fire Science Program Digests
Wildland fire managers face increasingly steep challenges to meet air quality standards while planning prescribed fire and its inevitable smoke emissions. The goals of sound fire management practices, including fuel load reduction through prescribed burning, are often challenged by the need to minimize smoke impacts on communities. Wildfires, of course, also produce smoke, so managers must constantly weigh the benefits and risks of controlled burns and their generated emissions against potential wildfires and their generated emissions and must communicate those benefits and risks to the public. Moreover, research on and the modeling of smoke emissions from fire is a rapidly …
Preparing Tomorrow’S Fire Professionals: Integration Of Education, Training, And Experience Through Science-Management Partnerships, Gail Wells
Joint Fire Science Program Digests
In this issue of Fire Science Digest, we explore the career and preparation challenges faced by forest and rangeland fi re professionals, both new and seasoned. As the job description grows more complex, a well-rounded background in current and emerging areas of fi re science and fi re management becomes critical. Today’s top professionals are approaching retirement, and tomorrow’s fi re professionals need to be adequately prepared to succeed them.
After The Fire Is Out, Elise Lequire
After The Fire Is Out, Elise Lequire
Joint Fire Science Program Digests
Even before firefighters have left a burn site, a second wave of specialists is deployed. Their task: to assess the burn site; determine the level of risk to life, property, and ecological resources; and determine quickly the most effective postfire treatments for emergency stabilization and initial rehabilitation of the site. For the past 13 years, the Joint Fire Science Program (JFSP) has funded research on this critical phase of work, which often goes unnoticed after the fire is out. With support from the JFSP, scientists have made great strides in improving the tools available to assess postfire risks and evaluate …
Knowledge Exchange: A Two-Way Street, Elise Lequire
Knowledge Exchange: A Two-Way Street, Elise Lequire
Joint Fire Science Program Digests
The best available science is of little use if it gathers dust on the shelves of library stacks or is deeply embedded on an obscure website. A key part of the Joint Fire Science Program (JFSP) mission is to ensure research on wildland fire science is readily available to practitioners in a useful format so it can help support sound management decisions. The JFSP has made great inroads in this arena on a national level, but managers short on time often have to sift through an overload of information that may not be specific to their region. In the next …
The Joint Fire Science Program’S First 10 Years, Gail Wells
The Joint Fire Science Program’S First 10 Years, Gail Wells
Joint Fire Science Program Digests
Fire scientists and managers at the 4th International Fire Ecology and Management Congress offer their thoughts about the program’s accomplishments, challenges, and future direction
Wildland Fire Use: Managing For A Fire-Smart Landscape, Gail Wells
Wildland Fire Use: Managing For A Fire-Smart Landscape, Gail Wells
Joint Fire Science Program Digests
The promise of wildland fire use (WFU) is that, over time, the fires will play a more natural role, creating a jigsaw-puzzle pattern of burned and regrowing patches over a landscape and gradually moving it closer to the stand structure and species composition that prevailed before fire exclusion became the policy.
Community Wildfire Protection Plans: Reducing Wildfire Hazards In The Wildland Urban Interface, Gail Wells
Community Wildfire Protection Plans: Reducing Wildfire Hazards In The Wildland Urban Interface, Gail Wells
Joint Fire Science Program Digests
The 2003 Healthy Forests Restoration Act calls for local communities in the wildland-urban interface to collaborate on developing Community Wildfire Protection Plans to reduce their wildfire hazard. To craft a successful CWPP, a community must collaborate effectively. A Joint Fire Science Program-sponsored research team studied 15 communities as they developed CWPPs. They found that social networks, learning communities, and community capacity were key indicators of success, and that working together on a CWPP can enhance a community’s capacity to collaborate, helping it address future challenges more skillfully.
Making Biomass Pay: Obstacles And Opportunities, Gail Wells
Making Biomass Pay: Obstacles And Opportunities, Gail Wells
Joint Fire Science Program Digests
Removing hazardous fuels to reduce the risk of wildfire has become a priority for land managers across the United States. Utilizing biomass taken from forests to cover the cost of fuel reduction is an attractive ideal. Effective utilization could also address important national challenges such as improving forest health, increasing domestic energy supplies, reducing carbon emissions, and revitalizing rural economies. However, getting woody biomass from the forest to the consumer is economically and logistically difficult, and efforts to make biomass utilization profitable have been disappointing so far. JFSP-funded researchers have found that, while there is no recipe for building a …
A Powerful New Planning Environment For Fuels Managers: The Interagency Fuels Treatment Decision Support System, Gail Wells
Joint Fire Science Program Digests
The Joint Fire Science Program, the National Wildfire Coordinating Group Fuels Management Committee, and Sonoma Technology, Inc. are unveiling the prototype of a new planning environment that will help fuels specialists negotiate the confusing array of planning tools. The new framework, dubbed the Interagency Fuels Treatment Decision Support System, or IFT-DSS, organizes fuels-planning software and data into a seamless user environment. IFT-DSS offers users access to powerful modeling software from within a well-designed, intuitive graphical user interface, and it provides a common platform for the further development of fuels-planning software tools. The name may not slide easily off the tongue—you …
Big Changes In The Great Basin, Gail Wells
Big Changes In The Great Basin, Gail Wells
Joint Fire Science Program Digests
JFSP-funded researchers are exploring the ecological functioning of sagebrush-steppe communities in the Great Basin and other places in the dry Intermountain West. Their work is helping managers effectively use tools such as tree mastication and prescribed fire to help these communities become more resilient in the face of invasive weeds. Other research is finding ways to reestablish native vegetation on sites where weedy invaders have pushed the community past the point where it can recover on its own.
The Rothermel Fire-Spread Model: Still Running Like A Champ, Gail Wells
The Rothermel Fire-Spread Model: Still Running Like A Champ, Gail Wells
Joint Fire Science Program Digests
In 1972, aeronautical engineer Richard C. Rothermel, of the USDA Fire Sciences Lab at Missoula, Montana, developed a method for modeling the spread of wildfire. The model became widely used, and although the ensuing years have brought many technological innovations, it is still the engine of the predictive tools used by fire behavior officers today. The JFSP is pleased to offer Dick Rothermel’s story as a tribute to a significant accomplishment, and also to showcase some of the current work at the Fire Sciences Lab.
The Fire-Climate Connection, Gail Wells
The Fire-Climate Connection, Gail Wells
Joint Fire Science Program Digests
A complex of stressors, Quick turnaround, Urgent questions, Weather, Climate, The research, The uncertain future, Help for land managers, A clearer picture