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Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons

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Portland State University

Series

Natural Resources Management and Policy

Wildfires -- research

Publication Year

Articles 1 - 3 of 3

Full-Text Articles in Physical Sciences and Mathematics

Fire And Land Cover Change In The Palouse Prairie–Forest Ecotone, Washington And Idaho, Usa, Penelope Morgan, Emily K. Heyerdahl, Eva K. Strand, Stephen C. Bunting, James P. Riser Ii, John T. Abatzoglou, Max Nielsen-Pincus, Mara Johnson Jan 2020

Fire And Land Cover Change In The Palouse Prairie–Forest Ecotone, Washington And Idaho, Usa, Penelope Morgan, Emily K. Heyerdahl, Eva K. Strand, Stephen C. Bunting, James P. Riser Ii, John T. Abatzoglou, Max Nielsen-Pincus, Mara Johnson

Environmental Science and Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

Background: Prairie–forest ecotones are ecologically important for biodiversity and ecological processes. While these ecotones cover small areas, their sharp gradients in land cover promote rich ecological interaction and high conservation value. Our objective was to understand how historical and current fire occurrences and human development influenced the Palouse Prairie–forest ecotone. We used General Land Office survey field notes about the occurrence of bearing trees to locate historical (1870s to 1880s) prairie, pine savanna, and forest at the eastern edge of the bioregion. We combined LANDFIRE Existing Vegetation classes to contrast historical land cover with current land cover. We reconstructed …


Social Vulnerability To Large Wildfires In The Western Usa, Palaiologos Palaiologou, Alan A. Ager, Max Nielsen-Pincus, Cody Evers, Michelle A. Day Sep 2019

Social Vulnerability To Large Wildfires In The Western Usa, Palaiologos Palaiologou, Alan A. Ager, Max Nielsen-Pincus, Cody Evers, Michelle A. Day

Environmental Science and Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

Federal land managers in the US can be informed with quantitative assessments of the social conditions of the populations affected by wildfires originating on their administered lands in order to incorporate and adapt their management strategy to achieve a more targeted prioritization of community wildfire protection investments. In addition, these assessments are valuable to socially vulnerable communities for quantifying their exposure to wildfires originating on adjacent land tenures. We assessed fire transmission patterns using fire behavior simulations to understand spatial variations across three diverse study areas (North-central Washington; Central California; and Northern New Mexico) to understand how different land tenures …


Fine-Scale Assessment Of Cross-Boundary Wildfire Events In The Western United States, Palaiologos Palaiologou, Alan A. Ager, Cody Evers, Max Nielsen-Pincus, Michelle A. Day, Haiganoush K. Preisler Jan 2019

Fine-Scale Assessment Of Cross-Boundary Wildfire Events In The Western United States, Palaiologos Palaiologou, Alan A. Ager, Cody Evers, Max Nielsen-Pincus, Michelle A. Day, Haiganoush K. Preisler

Environmental Science and Management Faculty Publications and Presentations

We report a fine-scale assessment of cross-boundary wildfire events for the western US. We used simulation modeling to quantify the extent of fire exchange among major federal, state, and private land tenures and mapped locations where fire ignitions can potentially affect populated places. We examined how parcel size affects wildfire transmission and partitioned the relative amounts of transmitted fire between human and natural ignitions. We estimated that 85 % of the total predicted wildfire activity, as measured by area burned, originates from four land tenures (Forest Service, Bureau of Land Management, private, and state lands) and 63 % of the …