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Do Annual Prescribed Fires Enhance Or Slow The Loss Of Coastal Marsh Habitat At Blackwater National Wildlife Refuge?, Donald R. Cahoon, Glenn Guntenspergen, Suzanne Baird

Joint Fire Science Program Research Project Reports

The rate of estuarine marsh loss at Blackwater NWR has been high (up to 2,000 ha) during the past 80 years because the vertical buildup of the marsh surface has lagged behind the local rate of relative sea-level rise. In this mineral sediment-poor estuary, marsh vertical development is driven primarily by the accumulation of plant matter in the soil (roots and rhizomes). Thus any activity that affects plant productivity can affect the ability of these marshes to keep pace with sea-level rise. Blackwater NWR has employed an annual prescribed fire regime since the 1970’s to achieve multiple management objectives. However, …

Do Fuel Treatments Reduce Fire Severity? Evaluating Treatment Effectiveness In The 2006 Tripod Complex Fires, Susan J. Prichard, David L. Peterson

Joint Fire Science Program Research Project Reports

The 2006 Tripod Complex fires burned over 70,000 ha of dry mixed conifer forests in north-central Washington State. Recent fuel treatments burned in the wildfire offered an opportunity to quantitatively evaluate if fuel treatment effectively mitigated fire severity. We quantified the relative effect of two common fuel treatments: mechanical thinning only (thin) and mechanical thinning followed by prescribed burning (thinRx). Fire severity was markedly different between the two treatments. Over 57% of trees survived in thinRx units versus 19% in thin and 14% in control units. Considering only large-diameter trees (> 20 cm dbh), 73% survived in thinRx units versus …

Effect Of Season And Interval Of Prescribed Burns In A Ponderosa Pine Ecosystem On Tree Growth And Understory Vegetation., W. G. Thies, Becky K. Kerns, Douglas J. Westlind

Joint Fire Science Program Research Project Reports

After decades of fire exclusion many stands now have historically unprecedented (high) levels of fuels and overstocking. As a result these stands have developed a variety of health issues. In response to these problems land managers are using prescribed fire to restore fuel loads and stand stocking to pre-fire exclusion levels. The impacts of season of prescribed burn as well as burn interval are not well understood. Managers need the ability to better predict these impacts on such things as tree mortality from fire, associated insect attack and disease development, tree growth, and plant communities. The “Season of Burn” study …

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 …