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Full-Text Articles in Other Forestry and Forest Sciences

A Chronosequence Feasibility Assessment Of Emergency Fire Rehabilitation Records Within The Intermountain Western United States, Kevin C. Knutson, David A. Pyke, Troy A. Wirth, David S. Pilliod, Matthew L. Brooks, Jeanne C. Chambers Jan 2009

A Chronosequence Feasibility Assessment Of Emergency Fire Rehabilitation Records Within The Intermountain Western United States, Kevin C. Knutson, David A. Pyke, Troy A. Wirth, David S. Pilliod, Matthew L. Brooks, Jeanne C. Chambers

Joint Fire Science Program Research Project Reports

Department of the Interior (DOI) bureaus have invested heavily (for example, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management (BLM) spent more than $60 million in fiscal year 2007) in seeding vegetation for emergency stabilization and burned area rehabilitation of non-forested arid lands over the past 10 years. The primary objectives of these seedings commonly are to (1) reduce the post-fire dominance of non-native annual grasses, such as cheatgrass (Bromus tectorum) and red brome (Bromus rubens); (2) minimize the probability of recurrent fire; and (3) ultimately produce desirable vegetation characteristics (for example, ability to recover following disturbance [resilience], resistance to invasive species, …

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Extending The Reach Of The Fire Effects Planning Framework By Taking A Critical Approach To Science Delivery And Application, Anne E. Black, Carol Miller, Vita Wright, Kate Walker, Carolyn Ballard, Paula Nasiatka, Brett Fay, Linda Chappell, Dave Calkin Jan 2009

Extending The Reach Of The Fire Effects Planning Framework By Taking A Critical Approach To Science Delivery And Application, Anne E. Black, Carol Miller, Vita Wright, Kate Walker, Carolyn Ballard, Paula Nasiatka, Brett Fay, Linda Chappell, Dave Calkin

Joint Fire Science Program Research Project Reports

The Fire Effects Planning Framework (FEPF), developed under JFSP project (99-1-3-16) “Wildland fuels management: evaluating and planning risks and benefits,” was formally completed in June 2004. FEPF is a logical framework that uses available data (e.g., local, LANDFIRE data) and existing software (e.g., GIS, Farsite, FlamMap, expert knowledge) to produce maps of probable fire effects during the pre-season or in advance of a fire front. The initial project included significant technology transfer activities. As that project concluded, however, we continued to receive requests for assistance from field managers (District, Forest and Regional Forest Service offices), international organizations (Interior West Fire …

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In Plantations Or Natural Stands: Ponderosa Is Programmed To Partner With Fire, Marjie Brown Jan 2009

In Plantations Or Natural Stands: Ponderosa Is Programmed To Partner With Fire, Marjie Brown

Joint Fire Science Program Briefs (2007-2012)

Ponderosa pine plantation forests cover nearly 400,000 acres of California’s National Forests. Fire hazard is extreme both within and adjacent to many of these areas which has led to extensive fuel reduction plans for plantations and other forests on federal public lands. Although fuels treatments have been implemented on a limited basis in California’s plantations, the effectiveness of varying methods has only recently received scientifi c attention. This project analyzed the effectiveness of individual and combination treatments to provide science-based guidance for fi re hazard reduction in these areas. Prescribed understory fi re, both alone and combined with pre-burn mastication, …

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Fire Returns To Southern Appalachian Forests, Elise Lequire Jan 2009

Fire Returns To Southern Appalachian Forests, Elise Lequire

Joint Fire Science Program Briefs (2007-2012)

In the Daniel Boone National Forest (DBNF) in eastern Kentucky, controlled experiments are shedding light on the role of fi re in meeting an urgent need: encouraging regeneration of oak in the forest. Though mature oak dominates the canopy in much of the forest, competition from species that tolerate shade has jeopardized the ability of oak to successfully regenerate. Since 1995, researchers have been collaborating with Forest Service managers, with funding from the Joint Fire Science Program (JFSP), to document the multiple effects of prescribed fi re on canopy opening, seedling recruitment, damage to mature trees, fuel loading, and effects …

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Angle Of Repose: Testing Erosion And Prescribed Fire In Eastern Oregon And Washington’S Blue Mountains, Lisa-Natalie Anjozian Jan 2009

Angle Of Repose: Testing Erosion And Prescribed Fire In Eastern Oregon And Washington’S Blue Mountains, Lisa-Natalie Anjozian

Joint Fire Science Program Briefs (2007-2012)

Some forest lands in the United States are overgrown with small trees and thick with fuels. Prescribed fire has been used in many forests and woodlands to reduce fuel loads and the risk of wildfi re. But forests are unique, with different soils, plants, weather, and topography. While erosion from prescribed fi re would seem to be less severe than from a wildfire, prior to this study, little data existed on erosion rates and the infl uence of prescribed fi re on erosion in the Blue Mountains of eastern Oregon and Washington. This study showed that hillslope erosion in the …

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Do Fence Me In: Cattle Enlisted In The Great Basin To Reverse The Cheatgrass/Wildfire Cycle, Elise Lequire Jan 2009

Do Fence Me In: Cattle Enlisted In The Great Basin To Reverse The Cheatgrass/Wildfire Cycle, Elise Lequire

Joint Fire Science Program Briefs (2007-2012)

Cheatgrass and cattle have co-existed in the Great Basin since the late 19th century, when both were introduced by settlers of the western territories. Unchecked grazing of the sagebrush-steppe community decimated the native perennial grasses in some areas and gave cheatgrass, a nonnative annual, permanent inroads into the ecosystem. Cheatgrass is generally palatable and nutritious for cattle in spring, but dries quickly in the hot, dry summers typical of the Great Basin, becoming a flashy fuel that carries fire quickly. The invasion has drastically shortened the fire return interval and led to increasingly intense and fast spreading wildfi res, which …

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Wildland Fire Use: Managing For A Fire-Smart Landscape, Gail Wells Jan 2009

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.

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Big Changes In The Great Basin, Gail Wells Jun 2008

Big Changes In The Great Basin, Gail Wells

Joint Fire Science Program Digests

Joint Science Fire Program (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.

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The Rothermel Fire-Spread Model: Still Running Like A Champ, Gail Wells Mar 2008

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 Joint Science Fire Program (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.

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Sagebrush Steppe: A Story Of Encroachment And Invasion Jan 2008

Sagebrush Steppe: A Story Of Encroachment And Invasion

Joint Fire Science Program Briefs (2007-2012)

Sagebrush steppe has been rapidly changing into woodlands of western juniper and pinyon pine since Euroamerican settlement of the West in the middle of the nineteenth century. The change from the dry scattered shrub and grasslands to woodlands has changed more than plants—it has also changed the fi re regime. Studies have revealed a threshold at which understory plants may not rebound after a disturbance—when trees have reached 40- to 50-percent cover. Disturbance—by fi re and overgrazing—also makes resources such as nutrients and soil water available for weeds to exploit, allowing invasives such as cheatgrass to establish and expand into …

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Testing The Conventional Wisdom: Fuel Management Approaches For The Central Hardwood Region, Jake Delwiche Jan 2008

Testing The Conventional Wisdom: Fuel Management Approaches For The Central Hardwood Region, Jake Delwiche

Joint Fire Science Program Briefs (2007-2012)

It’s not for nothing that Missouri calls itself the “Show Me State.” The name implies a common-sense insistence on seeing the evidence, an interest in seeing the proof. Thus, it is appropriate that an important long-term forestry research project is taking place in Southeastern Missouri. The goal is to test widely held opinions on the role and effectiveness of various forest fuel management strategies. Research results continue to be collected on the effects of overstory thinning and prescribed burning on forest fuelloads, and on using these tools to change the permanent character of the forest itself. The project began in …

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Forecast For The Southern Boreal Forest: An Increasing Incidence Of Severe Disturbance, Elise Lequire Jan 2008

Forecast For The Southern Boreal Forest: An Increasing Incidence Of Severe Disturbance, Elise Lequire

Joint Fire Science Program Briefs (2007-2012)

On Independence Day, 1999, a storm system that originated over the Gulf of Mexico and passed through North Dakota dealt a severe blow to nearly half a million acres of the Superior National Forest in northern Minnesota. The blowdown, or derecho, packed winds exceeding 90 miles per hour and left in its wake downed and damaged trees and a dangerously high fuel load. Nearly half a million acres of forest were affected, primarily in the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness (BWCAW) and the Gunfl int Trail Corridor, a strip of land in public and private ownership that supports a thriving …

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Pentimento: Fuels Reduction And Restoration In The Bosque Of The Middle Rio Grande, Lisa-Natalie Anjozian Jan 2008

Pentimento: Fuels Reduction And Restoration In The Bosque Of The Middle Rio Grande, Lisa-Natalie Anjozian

Joint Fire Science Program Briefs (2007-2012)

The Middle Rio Grande of New Mexico is the most extensive, remaining bosque, or cottonwood forest in the southwest. Alterations caused by humans—damming and channeling the river, controlling floods, and planting non-native trees—have disrupted the cycles of the earlier ecosystem. Without periodic flooding, native cottonwoods cannot regenerate. Invasive exotic plants such as Tamarisk, also known as salt cedar, and Russian olive have filled in the gaps and open spaces, increased fuel loads, and continue to replace native trees and shrubs after wildfires. Cottonwoods, not a fire-adapted species, are now at risk from wildfire and replacement by invasive plants. An array …

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Behavior Modification: Tempering Fire At The Landscape Level, Lisa-Natalie Anjozian Jan 2008

Behavior Modification: Tempering Fire At The Landscape Level, Lisa-Natalie Anjozian

Joint Fire Science Program Briefs (2007-2012)

With a history of management choices that have suppressed fire in the West, ecosystems in which fire would play a vital role have developed tremendous fuel loads. As a result, conditions are prime for fires to grow large, escape attack measures, and become catastrophic conflagrations that damage watersheds, forest resources, and homes. With a quiver of treatment options, land managers have successfully used prescribed burning and thinning to modify landscapes at the stand level. But planning treatments to modify fuel build up on a patch of forest is vastly different than planning treatments that could modify fire’s spread over larger …

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Fire And Climate In The Inland Pacific Northwest: Integrating Science And Management, Rachel Clark Jan 2008

Fire And Climate In The Inland Pacific Northwest: Integrating Science And Management, Rachel Clark

Joint Fire Science Program Briefs (2007-2012)

Climate is a vital force shaping much of life on Earth. People have long suspected a link between climate and susceptibility of forests to fire. But measuring such a relationship has been challenging without tools capable of taking into account climate, forest structure through space and time, and other variables. Managers and planners who make decisions to maintain forest health need an accurate understanding of how climate is linked to fire regimes, as well as tools to help them do it. Such tools would take complex information and allow it to be accessed in a straightforward and effective way. Don …

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Taking The Guesswork Out Of Lightning-Caused Wildfire, Marjie Brown Jan 2008

Taking The Guesswork Out Of Lightning-Caused Wildfire, Marjie Brown

Joint Fire Science Program Briefs (2007-2012)

Lightning is a natural source of wildfi re ignitions and causes a substantial portion of large wildfi res across the globe. Simple predictions of lightning activity don’t accurately determine fi re ignition potential because fuel conditions must be considered in addition to the fact that most lightning is accompanied by signifi cant rain. Fire operations managers need improved tools for prediction of widespread dry thunderstorms, which are those that occur without signifi cant rainfall reaching the ground. It is these dry storms that generate lightning most likely to result in multiple fi re ignitions, often in remote areas. In previous …

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How Does A Sierran Forest Grow? Fire, Thinning, And Regenerating Trees, Lisa-Natalie Anjozian Jan 2008

How Does A Sierran Forest Grow? Fire, Thinning, And Regenerating Trees, Lisa-Natalie Anjozian

Joint Fire Science Program Briefs (2007-2012)

Excluding fi re over the last century has allowed canopy cover to burgeon, to thicken, along with litter depth (dead needles and leaves accumulated on the forest fl oor), and tree density in western forests. These changes have altered the small scale (microsite) conditions that affect the ability of tree seedlings to establish. This study in a mixed-conifer forest in the Sierra Nevada revealed relationships between established understory trees and microsite quality, and examined the effect of fi re, thinning, and shrub cover on seedling establishment. Most of the conifer species grew on microsites with relatively high soil moisture and …

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Fire Is For The Birds In Northern Mixed-Grass Prairie, Marjie Brown Jan 2008

Fire Is For The Birds In Northern Mixed-Grass Prairie, Marjie Brown

Joint Fire Science Program Briefs (2007-2012)

Roughly 25,000 acres of grassland in the National Wildlife Refuges of North Dakota and eastern Montana are treated every year with prescribed fi re, mostly on northern mixed-grass prairie. Although this shrinking ecosystem is fi readapted, there have been very few studies of the effects of prescribed fi re on wildlife, introduced and native plants, and wildlife-habitat relationships in this delicate ecosystem. For this project, researchers documented short- and long-term fi re effects on abundance, productivity, nest site selection and nest predation in migratory birds, especially grassland songbirds. They also measured the impacts of encroaching woody shrubs and trees on …

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Something In The Air: Climate, Fire, And Ponderosa Pine In Southwestern Colorado, Lisa-Natalie Anjozian Jan 2008

Something In The Air: Climate, Fire, And Ponderosa Pine In Southwestern Colorado, Lisa-Natalie Anjozian

Joint Fire Science Program Briefs (2007-2012)

Strong, abrupt climate changes on a time scale of annual to decadal length, can have widespread and long-lasting effects on forest communities. Climate affects forests by creating conditions that kill trees through severe drought, or that promote tree establishment during rainy periods that foster seedlings and saplings. Climate also affects disturbance events that produce the conditions that allow, or limit, fi re occurrence. In studying a ponderosa pine forest in southwestern Colorado, scientists found few trees older than a regional “megadrought” that lasted over two decades in the late 1500s. In the 1600s, a long rainy period allowed trees to …

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Searching, Witnessing, Testing: Plants And Fire In Southern California, Lisa-Natalie Anjozian Jan 2008

Searching, Witnessing, Testing: Plants And Fire In Southern California, Lisa-Natalie Anjozian

Joint Fire Science Program Briefs (2007-2012)

Scant knowledge exists on how threatened, endangered, and sensitive (TES) plants on wildlands in southern California respond to fire. With little information to go on, land managers face diffi culties in deciding when to apply prescribed fire as a fuel reduction tool in sensitive habitats. By looking at the postfire landscape of the Manter Fire in the southern Sierra Nevada, which shares rare species with mountains farther south, scientists found the dramatic and dynamic effect of fire on short term recovery. Profuse wildflower displays and other annuals thrived in the first two years postfire, then diminished. Perennials persisted, including previously …

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The Impossible Summer Burn: Techniques For Fuel Reduction, Habitat Restoration And Happy Locals In Northeastern Pine Barrens, Marjie Brown Jan 2008

The Impossible Summer Burn: Techniques For Fuel Reduction, Habitat Restoration And Happy Locals In Northeastern Pine Barrens, Marjie Brown

Joint Fire Science Program Briefs (2007-2012)

New England pine barrens are highly fl ammable, fi re dependent and critically imperiled ecosystems. The last remaining pockets of this vegetation type are woven through cherished historic sites, prestigious resort communities and some of America’s most popular seashores. Fire exclusion has all but eliminated the periodic fi res this landscape requires for rejuvenation and maintenance. Unlike many other wildland-urban interface regions however, there are no regular, high profi le wildfi res to serve as reminders of the urgent need for fuels management. Because fi res are so infrequent, local governments, residents and visitors tend to think of wildfi re …

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Beetles And Severe Fire: Who’S On First? A Century Of Disturbance In Colorado’S Subalpine Forests, Marjie Brown Jan 2008

Beetles And Severe Fire: Who’S On First? A Century Of Disturbance In Colorado’S Subalpine Forests, Marjie Brown

Joint Fire Science Program Briefs (2007-2012)

Forests have evolved with and depend on natural cycles of wildfire, insect outbreaks, disease, and extreme weather for periodic rejuvenation. The subalpine forests of northwestern Colorado experienced an unusual sequence of disturbances in succession over the past 125 years. Severe wildfi res in 2002 were preceded by stand-replacing fi res a century before. These were followed by a record setting wind blowdown, subsequent salvage logging, and two separate bark beetle infestations. This study by University of Colorado researchers was the first to collectively analyze how a century of disturbances interacted with each other to shape ecosystem patterns and processes with …

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The Cone Fire: A Chance Reckoning For Fuel Treatments, Lisa-Natalie Anjozian Jan 2008

The Cone Fire: A Chance Reckoning For Fuel Treatments, Lisa-Natalie Anjozian

Joint Fire Science Program Briefs (2007-2012)

In late September 2002, an accidental fire ignited on Blacks Mountain in the dry pine forest of the Cascade Range of northeastern California. The fire burned through the Blacks Mountain Experimental Forest where a large-scale, long-term study was already underway to test ecological responses to two different stand structures the scientists had created using various treatments: high diversity, with and without prescribed fire, and low diversity, with and without prescribed fire. The study was not originally designed to test the effects of severe wildfires. The Cone Fire created an opportunity to evaluate the effects of different treatments on tree survival …

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The Tao Of Treating Weeds: Reaching For Restoration In The Northern Rocky Mountains, Lisa-Natalie Anjozian Jan 2008

The Tao Of Treating Weeds: Reaching For Restoration In The Northern Rocky Mountains, Lisa-Natalie Anjozian

Joint Fire Science Program Briefs (2007-2012)

Noxious weeds are a serious problem that is spreading across the West. Herbicides such as Picloram have proven to be powerful tools in reducing weed invaders, although use of this tool has often produced unintended consequences. Broadleaf herbicides kill forbs, such as the noxious knapweed, but also harm native forbs such as arrowleaf balsamroot. Removing weedy forbs from a landscape creates opportunities for grasses to thrive—native as well as nonnative. Because of herbicide treatment, study sites experienced great increases in cheatgrass, a non-native grass of poor forage that also alters fire intensity and frequency. Managers should consider that efforts to …

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Keep The Home Fires Burning: Rare Birds And Better Abodes In Southeastern Arizona, Lisa-Natalie Anjozian Jan 2008

Keep The Home Fires Burning: Rare Birds And Better Abodes In Southeastern Arizona, Lisa-Natalie Anjozian

Joint Fire Science Program Briefs (2007-2012)

The buff-breasted fl ycatcher is a rare bird that inhabits forests of the southwestern U.S. Long-term fire exclusion in these forests may have contributed to the buff-breasted fl ycatcher’s historical range contraction and recent population declines. Buff-breasted flycatchers today use less than 10% of their former U.S. breeding habitat. Researchers from the University of Arizona surveyed buff-breasted flycatchers along previously surveyed and new survey routes, some of which had burned during recent wildfires, within nine mountain ranges in southeastern Arizona. Sixty-three percent of the previously surveyed routes showed negative trends, a 10.5% annual decline in buff-breasted flycatcher numbers. Buffbreasted fl …

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In A Ponderosa Pine Forest, Prescribed Fires Reduce The Likelihood Of Scorched Earth, Elise Lequire Jan 2008

In A Ponderosa Pine Forest, Prescribed Fires Reduce The Likelihood Of Scorched Earth, Elise Lequire

Joint Fire Science Program Briefs (2007-2012)

The Malheur National Forest is located in the Blue Mountains on Oregon’s eastern side, the portion of the state that lies east of the Cascade Crest. In the mid 1990s, researchers and land managers conceived a suite of experiments to explore the effects of prescribed fi re on forest health. The studies were designed to coincide with prescribed burns conducted by the USDA Forest Service. The experiments took place in the Emigrant Creek Ranger District, a remote area dominated by ponderosa pine. One of the research projects aimed to assess soil health after different intervals of fire frequency and in …

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When Chaparral And Coastal Sage Scrub Burn: Consequences For Mammals, Management, And More, Rachel Clark Jan 2008

When Chaparral And Coastal Sage Scrub Burn: Consequences For Mammals, Management, And More, Rachel Clark

Joint Fire Science Program Briefs (2007-2012)

The massive Cedar and Otay fires of 2003 in southern California offered researchers an unexpected opportunity to examine the effects of fi re on mammal communities. Jay Diffendorfer and his colleagues had already been sampling small mammal communities at the Rancho Jamul Ecological Reserve where the Otay fi re broke out. There the researchers could see the difference in small mammal communities, pre- and postfire and the impacts of postfire, exotic grass invasion. At the Cleveland National Forest, where the Cedar fire occurred, the team examined whether the size and severity of the fire affected small mammal communities, as well …

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Fire And Ice: Fire Severity And Future Flammability In Alaskan Black Spruce Forests, Marjie Brown Jan 2008

Fire And Ice: Fire Severity And Future Flammability In Alaskan Black Spruce Forests, Marjie Brown

Joint Fire Science Program Briefs (2007-2012)

In Alaska, the unusually warm, dry summer of 2004 brought wildfires that burned a record setting 6.7 million acres, mostly in the flammable black spruce forests of the interior. Less fl ammable deciduous tree species were known to sometimes replace black spruce in areas where fire was severe enough to burn away the organic layer. Based on study of the 2004 fires, researchers developed methods for measuring the depth of pre-fi re organic layers, and predicting patterns of post-fire regeneration and future forest flammability. They investigated how variations in site moisture and organic layer consumption affect subsequent patterns of postfi …

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Have It Your Way: Open Source Software Brings Common Ground To Smoke Management And Emissions Inventories, Marjie Brown Jan 2008

Have It Your Way: Open Source Software Brings Common Ground To Smoke Management And Emissions Inventories, Marjie Brown

Joint Fire Science Program Briefs (2007-2012)

The Fire Emissions Production Simulator (FEPS) is an open source, user—friendly computer program designed for a wide range of users. The software manages data about consumption, emissions, and heat release characteristics of wildland fires and prescribed burns on an hourly basis. Designed for easy use by anyone with a working knowledge of Microsoft Windows applications, FEPS allows users with differing objectives, backgrounds and experience to come to scientifi cally sound, quantitative agreement regarding the emissions impacts of a given fire scenario. It incorporates fuels data from the most popular fuelbeds in the Fuel Characteristic Classifi cation System and fuel models …

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Chainsaws Or Driptorches: How Should Fire Risk Be Reduced?, Valerie Rapp Jan 2008

Chainsaws Or Driptorches: How Should Fire Risk Be Reduced?, Valerie Rapp

Joint Fire Science Program Briefs (2007-2012)

Forest managers have a standard set of tools they use to reduce fire hazard: mechanical thinning, brush clearing, mechanical treatment of slash (small woody debris), prescribed fire, and various combinations and timings of the use of these tools. Although these tools are widely used, the science is sketchy on the benefits and tradeoffs of the different treatments. In response, the national Fire and Fire Surrogates Study (FFS) set up a national network of research sites to study the effects of fire “surrogates,” such as mechanical thinning, mechanical slash treatments, and prescribed fire on forests. Early findings for the Sierra Nevada …

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