Other Forestry and Forest Sciences Commons^™

Effects Of Prescribed Burning, Mechanical, And Chemical Treatments To Curtail Rhododendron Dominance And Reduce Urban Interface Fuel Loads, Shepard M. Zedaker, Charles W. Harrell Iii, Christopher D. Pearce

Joint Fire Science Program Research Project Reports

One-half-acre treatment areas were delineated within prescribed burns. Cutting treatments consisted of chainsaw or brushsaw severing of all rhododendron stems within 6 in of the ground surface. Herbicide and herbicide followed by fire treatments consisted of basal applications of triclopyr or imazapyr in methylated seed oil on each plot. Cutting and burning treatments followed by herbicides utilized foliar applications of triclopyr or imazapyr in emulsions to all resprouting rhododendron. All herbicide plots were randomly split in half for the application of imazapyr or triclopyr on different halves. Analyses of variance and mean separation by LSD were used to compare treatment …

Evaluating Postfire Seeding Treatments Designed To Suppress Cheatgrass (Bromus Tectorum) In A Ponderosa Pine Forest On The Colorado Plateau, Matthew L. Brooks, Robert Klinger, Jennifer Chase, Curt Deuser

Joint Fire Science Program Research Project Reports

The restoration of historical fuel conditions and fire regimes is one of the primary land management goals in the Shivwits Plateau region of northwestern Arizona. Fire is the primary tool used in this region to reduce fuel loads and shift landscapes back to historical conditions of a low intensity, 8- 15 year return interval, surface fire regime. However, the invasive plant cheatgrass has become the dominant understory vegetation and fuel type following initial fire treatments in many areas. There is significant concern that repeated burning at historically appropriate fire return intervals for ponderosa pine forest will benefit this invasive plant …

Evaluating Approaches To Mapping Burn Probabilities For A Quantitative Wildland Fire Risk Analysis Framework., Carol Miller, Marc Parisien, Alan Ager, Mark Finney

Joint Fire Science Program Research Project Reports

This final report summarizes a collaboration that brought together experts in burn probability (BP) modeling and wildland fire risk analysis to compare and evaluate BP models, and ultimately incorporate these into a risk analysis framework. The project built on and extended the work from JFSP project #01-1-1-05. This project evaluated and tested three different independent models that generate BP maps as output for their operational use in risk analysis. The project quantified the relative sensitivity of the three BP models to different inputs, enhanced our understanding of the factors that affect BP at the landscape scale, and yielded concrete improvements …

Evaluating Postfire Seeding Treatments Designed To Suppress Cheatgrass (Bromus Tectorum) In A Ponderosa Pine Forest On The Colorado Plateau, Matthew L. Brooks, Robert Klinger, Jennifer Chase, Curt Deuser

Joint Fire Science Program Research Project Reports

The restoration of historical fuel conditions and fire regimes is one of the primary land management goals in the Shivwits Plateau region of northwestern Arizona. Fire is the primary tool used in this region to reduce fuel loads and shift landscapes back to historical conditions of a low intensity, 8- 15 year return interval, surface fire regime. However, the invasive plant cheatgrass has become the dominant understory vegetation and fuel type following initial fire treatments in many areas. There is significant concern that repeated burning at historically appropriate fire return intervals for ponderosa pine forest will benefit this invasive plant …

Burning And Bats: Fire’S Effect On The Endangered Indiana Bat, Christina Frame

Joint Fire Science Program Briefs (2007-2012)

The spring prescribed burn window in the Central Hardwoods is short (usually April) and good burning days are few. The Daniel Boone National Forest (DBNF) prescribed fi re program is trying to regenerate oak ecosystems ahead of the arrival of gypsy moths in the region and the high overstory oak mortality that can result. If the burn window could be extended into the growing season (later spring), managers could control vegetation more effectively. However, the DBNF also serves as warm-season roosting habitat for the endangered Indiana bat, so burning into the growing season could potentially put the bats—and especially maternity …

A Gust Changes Everything: Local Wind Information In Unprecedented Detail With Windwizard And Windninja, Marjie Brown

Joint Fire Science Program Briefs (2007-2012)

Fire behavior model accuracy has suffered from a lack of specific information about how winds shift in direction and speed in mountainous terrain at fine scales. Before this project, fire managers lacked a tool that could provide realtime status of changing wind conditions at the scale of a specific ridge or drainage. This project resulted in two wind simulation tools that focus on this critical need: WindWizard and WindNinja. WindWizard, based on commercial computational fluid dynamics software, comes with a price tag and is computationally slower due to the complexity of the calculations it performs. WindNinja was developed as WindWizard’s …

Nebraska Statewide Forest Resource Assessment & Strategy - 2010, Scott Josiah, John Erixson

Nebraska Forest Service: Publications

This Assessment relies heavily on the input from our partners. To complete the Assessment, we bolstered our own forest resource data with publicly available data from a variety of sources, including the National Land Cover Dataset, USFS Spatial Analysis Project, U.S. Census Bureau, Nebraska Game and Parks Commission, Nebraska Department of Roads, Nebraska Natural Resources Districts and input from many partners. Combined, this information provided us with valuable insights about the nature, complexity and value of our forest resources, and helped us identify priority forest areas across the state.

Using the information from the Assessment, we developed strategic goals based …

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 …

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 …

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 (CWPPs) 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.

The Fire Effects Information System: How A Superhero Database Comes To Save The Day, Lisa-Natalie Anjozian

Joint Fire Science Program Briefs (2007-2012)

Land managers must make fi re management decisions considering place, history, and species, an undertaking that requires a vast amount of information that tends to be spread through many publications. The Fire Effects Information System ([FEIS] at www.fs.fed.us/database/feis) provides a single source for managers, where knowledge available in the scientifi c literature has been analyzed, discussed, and synthesized into reviews of plant and animal species. As managers formulate plans for prescribed fi res, fuel management, and post-fi re revegetation, they can see at a glance, without having to perform their own literature search, what the results of past research have …

Chipping, Burning, And The Care Of Southeastern Pine Woodlands, Lisa-Natalie Anjozian

Joint Fire Science Program Briefs (2007-2012)

Chipping as a land management tool is increasing in popularity to treat lands where burning presents problems, such as areas with ever growing population along the wildland-urban interface. Escaped fi re, and health and nuisance hazards from smoke have caused many managers to avoid burning altogether. The researchers found chipping by itself is likely not an adequate surrogate for fi re, either for restoring ecosystems to desired plant communities, or for limiting fuels, changing fi re behavior, and reducing smoke as a safeguard for future wildfi res. However, chipping in conjunction with fi re demonstrates mostly positive benefi ts for …

Saltcedar: Is Burning An Option?, Jake Delwiche

Joint Fire Science Program Briefs (2007-2012)

Saltcedar, an invasive plant genus, is diffi cult to eliminate. A 2001–2002 research project, partially funded by the Joint Fire Science Program, investigated burning as a tool to combat the growth and spread of saltcedar in Western riparian environments. It also evaluated the subsequent survival characteristics of saltcedar after the prescribed burn. The research was performed by a team from Texas Tech University, Lubbock, Texas. Researchers concluded that fi re behavior in saltcedar-dominated communities is largely dependent on whether the areas have burned in the recent past. Decadent stands of saltcedar carry fi res through the crowns with extreme fl …

Blackbrush Shrublands: Fire Conditions And Solutions In The Mojave Desert, Lisa-Natalie Anjozian

Joint Fire Science Program Briefs (2007-2012)

While mature stands of blackbrush present an almost continuous cover that appears to suppress other species, this ecosystem supports a greater array of different plant species than was previously thought. Fire can completely remove blackbrush cover, but it also results in reduced numbers of other native species, and increased dominance of non-native species such as annual grasses that can promote recurrent fi re and alter the fi re regime. Where blackbrush shrublands historically experienced intense fi res with a long fi re return interval, the non-native fi ne fuels that are now prevalent in many stands promote a greater rate …

Fuels Treatment Demonstration Sites In The Boreal Forests Of Interior Alaska, Marjie Brown

Joint Fire Science Program Briefs (2007-2012)

Wildland fi re is the dominant disturbance force in the boreal forests of Alaska which cover about 114 million acres of the south-central and interior regions of the state. Fire in the wildland-urban interface (WUI) is an exceptionally daunting concern as a high percentage of Alaskans live in outlying rural areas and settlements. Fire hazard is growing as communities continue to expand into isolated locations surrounded by highly fl ammable black spruce. To address this concern, researchers developed the fi rst shaded fuel break demonstration sites specifi cally designed for use in the WUI. They compared the effectiveness, environmental impacts …

Low-Intensity Fire In Eastern White Pine A Supporting Role In Understory Diversity, Marjie Brown

Joint Fire Science Program Briefs (2007-2012)

Although high-intensity fire has been studied extensively in the forests of the Great Lakes region, the role of low-intensity fi re in stands of eastern white pine has received almost no study. For this project, scientists and mangers teamed up in northern Wisconsin to fi nd out what low-intensity fire means for white pine regeneration and fuels reduction. Surprisingly, there was no white pine regeneration in the burn units even fi ve years after fi re. But low-intensity prescribed fi re triggered a very strong understory response in terms of cover and richness, and can likely be used to support …

The Indefatigable Hand: Cutting, Funding, Studying Treatments, Federal Timber And Market Impacts, Lisa-Natalie Anjozian

Joint Fire Science Program Briefs (2007-2012)

Though fuel specialists, scientists and managers have developed treatment tools to reduce fuel hazards, such as mechanical thinning by removing trees, costs to treat lands at risk can be prohibitively high. Harvesting timber and woody materials that can then be sold reduces costs, but only about 20 to 30 percent. Treatment costs average over $1,000 per acre in some areas. Spending $300 million per year in treating government lands would take over twelve decades to treat all high and moderate risk stands; $900 million per year would reduce this to four decades. Treating only wildland-urban interface areas or high risk …

Wildfire, Prescribed Fire, And Peak Stream Flow: Understanding Effects On Stream Habitats And Communities, Joy Drohan

Joint Fire Science Program Briefs (2007-2012)

Much of the previous research on wildfire’s effects on stream communities has examined biotic responses in burned versus unburned watersheds (catchments). But we know that fires burn in a mosaic pattern of differing severities across the landscape, depending on topography, aspect, vegetation, weather, and other factors. Scientists evaluated the gradient of burn severity among watersheds in a dry Intermountain West ponderosa pine forest in central Idaho to gauge the relative response of stream communities under a range of burn severities. They observed a gradient of both habitat and biotic effects correlated with a gradient of burn severity. Effects varied based …

Mapping And Estimating Forest Fuel With Radar Remote Sensing, Rachel Clark

Joint Fire Science Program Briefs (2007-2012)

With an increase in the risk of large fires across much of the Western United States, along with a growing variety of fuel types that result from changes in the landscape and management strategies, there has never been a more pressing need for accurate, cost-efficient, large scale forest fuel maps. Emerging remote sensing technologies may yield exactly the kind of large scale maps needed to more accurately predict forest fuel loads, fire risk, and fire behavior. With the Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem as their backdrop, Don Despain, Sasaan Saatchi, Kerry Halligan, Richard Aspinall, and Robert Crabtree worked together to acquire a …

From The Ground Up, Way Up: Measuring Live Fuel Moisture With Satellite Imagery To Fine-Tune Fire Modeling In Western Ecosystems, Rachel Clark

Joint Fire Science Program Briefs (2007-2012)

Remote sensing from space may well become one of the world’s most effective, accurate, and effi cient ways to assess fi re risk and thus manage large landscapes. The technology is evolving quickly, and researchers are busy keeping up. Some major western U.S. landscapes are just now being assessed for integrating remote sensing data with “on the ground” data that helps fi ne tune remote sensing models, and helps researchers assess which models work best. Drs. Jenny Rechel and Dar Roberts have worked together to gather Live Fuel Moisture (LFM) data from seven major western landscapes with similar mixed vegetation …

Lookouts In The Sky With Algorithms: Forecasting Air Quality With Satellite-Sent Data, Lisa-Natalie Anjozian

Joint Fire Science Program Briefs (2007-2012)

Data and algorithms from earth-orbiting satellite observations provide key components in scientists’ tools that can map active fi res and burn scars. Fire perimeter maps can then be crafted using this data. Armed with fi re perimeter maps that have been linked to fuel maps of the area burning, scientists can calculate emissions from recently burned areas, determine the quantity of emitted gases and particulates, and determine where these emissions will travel downwind from the burn site. For this project, data from satellite sources has been compared against data collected on the ground by ground-based instruments and incident management teams, …

Patch Burning On Grasslands: An Alternative Approach For Rangeland Management, Jake Delwiche

Joint Fire Science Program Briefs (2007-2012)

Large grazing ungulates—notably cattle, elk and American bison—if given a choice exhibit a grazing preference for regrowth on recently burned areas of grassland. Traditional rangeland management approaches that minimize inherent rangeland heterogeneity are increasingly understood as counter to the evolutionary history of rangeland. Heterogeneity is defi ned as variation in the characteristics of vegetation including species, biomass, and height. Recent research now fi nds an alternative approach to rangeland management through patch burning, giving a variegated texture to the grazing land and more closely simulating the earlier evolutionary pattern of much North American rangeland. Patch burning creates a mosaic of …

Your House In Your Hands: Customized Wildfire Risk Assessment For Southern Homeowners, Marjie Brown

Joint Fire Science Program Briefs (2007-2012)

Northeast Decision Model (NED) is a computer-based program originally developed to help land managers and property owners protect resources like timber, wildlife, watersheds and aesthetics. This project enhanced NED by integrating a do-it-yourself fire risk assessment and mitigation tool specifi cally for private property owners dwelling in the wildlandurban interface entitled—Wildfi re Risk Assessment Guide for Southern Homeowners. The upgrade provides an easy way for homeowners in the Southeastern U.S. to evaluate wildfire risk for their own unique structures and property, and rank the effectiveness of different protective actions in reducing that risk.

A Tale Of Teakettle: Fire Is Key To Restoring Forests, Rachel Clark

Joint Fire Science Program Briefs (2007-2012)

Prescribed fire and mechanical thinning have long been used as management tools in fire-excluded forests. Until recently, however, little coordinated data existed on the ecological effects of thinning versus fiire. Malcolm North and a large team of scientists working in mixed-conifer stands at the Teakettle Experimental Forest in California, examined how a range of ecosystem functions responded to commonly used fuels treatments. They found that fire is the key to restoring forest health, and thinning is best viewed as a tool for controlling fire intensity and extent. Collectively the different research studies at Teakettle found that fi re can “jump …

Aloha To Flammable Fountain Grass: Fuels Management Comes To The Big Island Of Hawaii, Marjie Brown

Joint Fire Science Program Briefs (2007-2012)

Fountain grass is an invasive, highly flammable ornamental plant that has overtaken the dry, tropical ecosystems of west Hawaii. Over the last several decades, large, fast spreading fountain grass fires have burned across the landscape with increasing frequency, usually ignited by roadside activities in remote areas. The Pu’u Anahulu Fuels Management Project evaluated the effectiveness of different roadside fuels treatments on fountain grass using a collaborative approach, and allowed the first use of science-based fuels treatments and prescribed fire in Hawaii. Demonstration sites were established along roadsides where ignitions were known to occur. The clear winner for sustained reduction of …

Biological Soil Crusts: A Crucial Component Of Arid Ecosystems, Elise Lequire

Joint Fire Science Program Briefs (2007-2012)

Biological soil crusts are a complex community of primitive organisms that thrive worldwide in harsh, arid and semiarid regions where other vegetation such as trees, shrubs, and grasses is sparse. These crusts play a key role in stabilizing bare soil, stemming erosion from wind and rain, trapping moisture, fixing carbon and nitrogen in the soil, and providing shelter for the seeds of vascular plants. Together, the species that make up soil crusts—cyanobacteria or blue green algae, green algae, fungi, lichens, and mosses—have developed synergistic communities critical to these dry ecosystems. In the semi-arid Great Basin, juniper has encroached into areas …

Restoring Fire To The Longleaf Pine Forest, Elise Lequire

Joint Fire Science Program Briefs (2007-2012)

At the time of European settlement, the longleaf pine ecosystem dominated the southeastern landscape. Lightning strikes and the use of fi re by Native Americans maintained this habitat as an open savanna with a grassy forest fl oor that supported a great diversity of wildlife. Once considered the most commercially valuable species in its range, it was extensively harvested and replaced with faster growing species such as loblolly pine. By the 20th century, the longleaf pine ecosystem was so reduced that today, it is considered endangered. As of 2004, only 15 documented old-growth stands of longleaf pine forest remained in …

Over 50 Years Of Prescribed Burning On The South Carolina Coastal Plain, Jake Delwiche

Joint Fire Science Program Briefs (2007-2012)

A long-term study has been done on the effects of repeated dormant season prescribed burns within a forested area on the South Carolina Coastal Plain, on plots dominated by mixed longleaf pine and loblolly pine. A recent report documents the effectiveness of this burning as a tool to reduce hazardous fuel loads. Repeated burns at intervals from one to four years help to return and maintain the forest in a state closer to its composition before European settlement. Prescribed burning here reduces the risk of overstory-killing wildfi res, and helps maintain habitat for the endangered red-cockaded woodpecker. Further, it helps …

Sharpening The Tools For Prescribed Burns In Eastern Mixed-Oak Forests, Jake Delwiche

Joint Fire Science Program Briefs (2007-2012)

A research project on forest lands in the mid-Atlantic region was performed with the dual goals of testing which of the 13 Anderson fuel models most accurately depicts common understory fuel characteristics in these forests, and what proportion of advance regeneration of desired species will sprout after burning. The work covered a range of public forest lands, and varying types of fuels and different burn intensities. Researchers found that, overall, one or more of the Anderson fuel models accurately portray most of the fuel conditions found on the experimental areas. However, no fuel model appears to represent evergreen heath shrubs …

Pine Chronologies In Central Appalachian Forests: Fiery Implications, Rachel Clark

Joint Fire Science Program Briefs (2007-2012)

Eastern forests are lush, humid and dominated by hardwoods, relative to fire-prone forests of the West. But until recently, there was little clear evidence for the fi re history of central Appalachia. Specifi cally, there were no tree-ring chronologies depicting fi re history. Dr. Henri Grissino-Mayer of the University of Tennessee and Dr. Charles Lafon of Texas A&M University along with their colleagues found remnant pine stands hidden in the George Washington and Jefferson National Forests of Virginia. They painstakingly acquired more than 600 pine cross sections, and discovered that not only did fire once occur in these forests, but …