Fuels and Fuel Treatments

The decrease in fire activity has been recognized as a main cause of expansion of North American woodlands. Piñon-juniper habitat in the western United States has expanded in area nearly 10-fold since the late 1800s. Woodland control measures using chainsaws, heavy equipment, and prescribed fire are used to restore sagebrush steppe plant communities.

Rapid and broad-scale forest mortality associated with recent droughts, rising temperature, and insect outbreaks has been observed over western North America (NA). Climate models project additional future warming and increasing drought and water stress for this region.

Increasing size and severity of wildfires have led to an interest in the effectiveness of forest fuels treatments on reducing fire severity and post-wildfire fuels. Our objective was to contrast stand structure and surface fuel loadings on treated and untreated sites within the 2002 Rodeo-Chediski Fire area.

Fire behavior modeling and geospatial analyses can provide tremendous insight for land managers as they grapple with the complex problems frequently encountered in wildfire risk assessments and fire and fuels management planning.

We employed meta-analysis and information theory to synthesize findings reported in the literature on the effects of fuel treatments on subsequent fire intensity and severity. Data were compiled from 19 publications that reported observed fire responses from 62 treated versus untreated contrasts.

This publication provides an overview of how various silvicultural treatments affectfuel and fire behavior, and how to create fire-resistant forests. In properlytreated, fire-resistant forests, fire intensity is reduced and overstory treesare more likely to survive than in untreated forests. Fire-resistant forestsare not “fireproof” – under the right conditions, any forest will burn.

An experimental apparatus has been constructed to generate a controlled and repeatable size and mass distribution of glowing firebrands. The present study reports on a series of experiments conducted in order to characterize the performance of this firebrand generator.

Mixed-conifer forests in the interior Pacific Northwest are subject to sporadic outbreaks of the western spruce budworm, the most destructive defoliator in western North America. Such outbreaks usually occur synchronously over broad regions and lead to widespread decreases in growth rates and low to moderate levels of mortality.