NWCG Smoke Management Guide for Prescribed Fire

The NWCG Smoke Management Guide for Prescribed Fire contains information on prescribed fire smoke management techniques, air quality regulations, smoke monitoring, modeling, communication, public perception of prescribed fire and smoke, climate change, practical meteorological approaches and smoke tools. The primary focus of this document is to serve as the textbook in support of NWCG’s RX-410, Smoke Management Techniques course which is required for the position of Prescribed Fire Burn Boss Type 2 (RXB2) The Guide is useful to all who use prescribed fire, from private land owners to federal land managers, with practical tools, and underlying science. Many chapters are helpful for addressing air quality impacts from wildfires. It is intended to assist those who are following the guidance of the NWCG’s Interagency Prescribed Fire Planning and Implementation Procedures Guide, PMS 484, in planning for, and addressing, smoke when conducting prescribed fires.

For a glossary of relevant terminology, consult the NWCG Glossary of Wildland Fire Terminology at https://www.nwcg.gov/glossary/a-z. For smoke management and air quality terms not commonly used by NWCG, consult the Smokepedia at https://www.frames.gov/partner-sites/emissions-and-smoke/educational-res....

Cumulative effects of wildfires on forest dynamics in the eastern Cascade Mountains, USA

Wildfires pose a unique challenge to conservation in fire‐prone regions, yet few studies quantify the cumulative effects of wildfires on forest dynamics (i.e., changes in structural conditions) across landscape and regional scales. We assessed the contribution of wildfire to forest dynamics in the eastern Cascade Mountains, USA from 1985 to 2010 using imputed maps of forest structure (i.e., tree size and canopy cover) and remotely sensed burn severity maps. We addressed three questions: (1) How do dynamics differ between the region as a whole and the unburned portion of the region? (2) How do dynamics vary among vegetation zones differing in biophysical setting and historical fire frequency? (3) How have forest structural conditions changed in a network of late successional reserves (LSRs)? Wildfires affected 10% of forests in the region, but the cumulative effects at this scale were primarily slight losses of closed‐canopy conditions and slight gains in open‐canopy conditions. In the unburned portion of the region (the remaining 90%), closed‐canopy conditions primarily increased despite other concurrent disturbances (e.g., harvest, insects). Although the effects of fire were largely dampened at the regional scale, landscape scale dynamics were far more variable. The warm ponderosa pine and cool mixed conifer zones experienced less fire than the region as a whole despite experiencing the most frequent fire historically. Open‐canopy conditions increased slightly in the mixed conifer zone, but declined across the ponderosa pine zone even with wildfires. Wildfires burned 30% of the cold subalpine zone, which experienced the greatest increase in open‐canopy conditions and losses of closed‐canopy conditions. LSRs were more prone to wildfire than the region as a whole, and experienced slight declines in late seral conditions. Despite losses of late seral conditions, wildfires contributed to some conservation objectives by creating open habitats (e.g., sparse early seral and woodland conditions) that otherwise generally decreased in unburned landscapes despite management efforts to increase landscape diversity. This study demonstrates the potential for wildfires to contribute to regional scale conservation objectives, but implications for management and biodiversity at landscape scales vary geographically among biophysical settings, and are contingent upon historical dynamics and individual species habitat preferences.

Wildfires managed for restoration enhance ecological resilience

Expanding the footprint of natural fire has been proposed as one potential solution to increase the pace of forest restoration programs in fire‐adapted landscapes of the western USA. However, studies that examine the long‐term socio‐ecological trade‐offs of expanding natural fire to reduce wildfire risk and create fire resilient landscapes are lacking. We used the model Envision to examine the outcomes that might result from increased area burned by what we call “restoration” wildfire in a landscape where the ecological benefits of wildfire are known, but the need to suppress high‐risk fires that threaten human values is also evident. Our study area, in the eastern Cascades of Oregon, USA, includes the Deschutes National Forest where large tracts of mixed conifer forest structure are outside the historical range of variation and characterized by multi‐layer, closed‐canopy stands. We found that simulation of one restoration wildfire per year in addition to high‐risk wildfires in the regular fire season and over the course of 50 yr resulted in a 23% increase in total area burned, but the same probability of fire‐on‐fire interactions. This translated into 0.3% of the national forest burned by restoration wildfire per year and had a small impact in area burned by high‐risk fires albeit more likely in extreme fire years. Smoke production doubled in the restoration scenario relative to the scenario without restoration wildfire, but still resulted in minimal smoke production in most years. Restoration fires burned with low‐ to mixed‐severity and led to a steady reduction in canopy cover and increase in resilient forest structure in dry‐forest types. Habitat for the federally protected northern spotted owl declined with the inclusion of restoration fire, while habitat for species that use recently burned forest stands (e.g., black‐backed woodpecker) increased. Our results suggest that restoration wildfire can improve forest resilience and contribute to restoration efforts in fire‐adapted forests, but there are trade‐offs (wildlife habitat, smoke, area burned in fire‐sensitive forest types), and the level of restoration fire use we simulated is unlikely to have a significant impact on the occurrence of high‐severity wildfires.