Fuels and Fuel Treatments

Methods and models to design, prioritize and evaluate fuel break networks have potential application in many fire-prone ecosystems where major increases in fuel management investments are planned in response to growing incidence of wildfires.

Background Wildland firefighters have physically and psychologically demanding jobs that can result in social, economic and health-related stress.

Historically, wildfire and tribal burning practices played important roles in shaping ecosystems throughout the Klamath Siskiyou Bioregion of northern California and southern Oregon.

An increasingly important goal of federal land managers in seasonally dry forests of the western US is restoring forest resilience. In this study, we quantified the degree to which a thinning treatment in a dry forest of eastern Oregon restored aspects of forest resilience by focusing on key functional attributes of our study system.

Fire suppression has become a fundamental approach for shaping contemporary wildfire regimes. However, a growing body of research suggests that aggressive fire suppression can increase high-intensity wildfires, creating the wildfire paradox. Whether the strategy always triggers the paradox remains a topic of ongoing debate.

Natural disturbances (wildfires, droughts, beetle outbreaks) shaped temperate forests for millennia, including dry forests of the western USA. Could they now best restore and adapt dry forests to climate change while protecting nearby communities?

Assessing the effectiveness and measuring the performance of fuel treatments and other wildfire risk mitigation efforts are challenging endeavors. Perhaps the most complicated is quantifying avoided impacts. In this study, we show how probabilistic counterfactual analysis can help with performance evaluation.

Yellow pine and mixed-conifer (YPMC) forests of California’s Sierra Nevada have experienced widespread fire suppression for over a century, resulting in ingrowth and densification of trees, heavy fuel accumulation, and shifts in species composition.

In recent decades, there has been a significant increase in annual area burned in California's Sierra Nevada mountains. This rise in fire activity has prompted the need to understand how historical forest management practices affect fuel composition and emissions.

Background Plant flammability is an important factor in fire behaviour and post-fire ecological responses.