Topic: Fuels and Fuel Treatments

Background

Prevailing American wildland fire modelling systems fail to predict fire growth in urban areas due to the absence of burnable urban fuels.

Aims

This research aims to identify fuel models that optimise fire spread in urban areas…

As wildfires in the western United States grow in frequency and severity, forest fuels treatment has been increasingly recognized as essential for enhancing forest resilience and mitigating wildfire risks. However, the economic valuation of the treatment's co-benefits remains underexplored,…

Background

Wildfire suppression is shaped by a complex interplay of environmental conditions, resource allocation and management strategies.

Aims

Examining the containment of the 2021 Schneider Springs Fire in the Eastern Cascades of…

Biological legacies (i.e., materials that persist following disturbance; “legacies”) shape ecosystem functioning and feedbacks to future disturbances, yet how legacies are driven by pre-disturbance ecosystem state and disturbance severity is poorly understood—especially in ecosystems influenced…

Background

United States wilderness areas face increasing challenges from altered fire regimes and climate change, and land managers face ever more complex decisions about fire use. While federal policies permit various fire management strategies in wilderness,…

Restoring a low-intensity, frequent-fire regime in fire-prone forests offers a promising natural climate solution. Management interventions that include prescribed fire and/or mechanical treatments have effectively reduced fire hazards in the Western United States, yet concerns remain regarding…

A key tenet of contemporary management in dry, fire-adapted forests of western North America is the reintroduction of a frequent and low- to moderate-severity fire regime. Where this fire regime has been fully or partially restored, it is critical to evaluate the degree to which these landscapes…

Background

Dead fine fuel moisture content (FMC) is critical for predicting fire behavior and effects. Spatiotemporal variation in FMC occurs due to to variability in atmospheric conditions at the fuel interface, which is influenced by interacting factors including local…

Forest managers are faced with escalating size, severity, and cost of wildfires. To mitigate this, U.S. federal land management agencies are increasing forest treatments such as mechanical thinning and prescribed fire. While there is a growing body of work on treatment–wildfire interactions,…

Background

Large, severe fires are increasing throughout frequent-fire forests of the western United States due to warming climatic conditions, as well as legacies of early twentieth century land-use practices and anthropogenic fire exclusion. Resource objective (RO)…