Research Database
Displaying 61 - 77 of 77
Trust: A Planning Guide for Wildfire Agencies & Practitioners
Year: 2014
In increasing numbers, agency personnel, interest groups, and residents of at-risk communities are coming together to consider wildfire problems and taking steps to solve them. Particularly with regard to fire management, trust among parties is an essential element to successful local programs (Olsen & Shindler 2010, Lachapelle & McCool 2012). Despite a growing body of research literature on this topic, there are few practical guides for fire managers and practitioners about how to build and evaluate trust amongst stakeholders. Our intention here is to bring clarity to the trust…
Publication Type: Report
Vegetation Recovery and Fuel Reduction after Seasonal Burning of Western Juniper
Year: 2014
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. We compared vegetation recovery following cutting and prescribed fire on three sites in late Phase 2 (mid succession) and Phase 3 (late succession) western juniper (Juniperus occidentalis Hook.) woodlands in southeast Oregon. Treatments were…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Closing the feedback loop: evaluation and adaptation in collaborative resource management
Year: 2013
This sourcebook provides answers from the field— strategies and tools that some collaborative resource management groups have used to systematically evaluate their work and adapt plans and management actions based on what they have learned. The examples described in this document are drawn from rapid assessments of nine collaborative resource management groups and informed by organizational and social learning, evaluation, and adaptive management concepts.
Publication Type: Report
Regional constraints to biological nitrogen fixation in post-fire forest communities
Year: 2013
Biological nitrogen fixation (BNF) is a key ecological process that can restore nitrogen (N) lost in wildfire and shape the pace and pattern of post-fire forest recovery. To date, there is limited information on how climate and soil fertility interact to influence different pathways of BNF in early forest succession. We studied asymbiotic (forest floor and soil) and symbiotic (the shrub Ceanothus integerrimus) BNF rates across six sites in the Klamath National Forest, California, USA. We used combined gradient and experimental phosphorus (P) fertilization studies to explore cross-site…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Restoring and Managing Mixed Conifer Forests in the PNW
Year: 2013
Many collaborative groups working across the eastside of Oregon and Washington have developed good working agreements on treatments appropriate for ponderosa pine forest types. These groups are actively supporting and helping to develop projects that will meet ecological objectives for dry forests while generating jobs and economic activity in local communities. Currently, there is less agreement on how to approach restoration and management of mixed-conifer forests, in large part because there does not appear to be a comparable scientific consensus as that which exists for ponderosa pine…
Publication Type: Conference Proceedings
Making monitoring count: project design for active adaptive management
Year: 2013
Ongoing environmental change requires that managers develop strategies capable of achieving multiple objectives in an uncertain future. Active adaptive management (AAM) offers a robust approach to reducing uncertainty while also considering diverse stakeholder perspectives. Important features of AAM include recognition of learning as a management objective, integration of monitoring throughout all aspects of project design and implementation, and use of experimental design in project planning. These features facilitate collaborator engagement and adaptive management based on credible…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Restoring & Managing Mixed Conifer Forests in the PNW
Year: 2013
Many collaborative groups working across the eastside of Oregon and Washington have developed good working agreements on treatments appropriate for ponderosa pine forest types. These groups are actively supporting and helping to develop projects that will meet ecological objectives for dry forests while generating jobs and economic activity in local communities. Currently, there is less agreement on how to approach restoration and management of mixed-conifer forests, in large part because there does not appear to be a comparable scientific consensus as that which exists for ponderosa pine…
Publication Type: Report
Building community-agency trust in fire affected communities in Australia and the United States
Year: 2013
As a result of the increasing environmental and social costs of wildfire, fire management agencies face ever-growing complexity in their management decisions and interactions with the public. The success of these interactions with community members may be facilitated through building community–agency trust in the process of providing public input opportunities and community engagement and education activities. Without trust, the public may become frustrated in their interactions with the agency and withhold support for management decisions. This study takes a comparative case approach using…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Dry Forest Zone Maps 2013
Year: 2013
The Dry Forest Investment Zone (DFIZ) is a five-year project to address common natural resource-based economic development challenges through increased networking and capacity building at a regional scale. Sustainable Northwest leads this project in partnership with Wallowa Resources in northeastern Oregon, the Watershed Research and Training Center in northern California, and the Ecosystem Workforce Program at the University of Oregon. The central components of the DFIZ strategy are: 1) To build strong local nonprofit organizations and collaborative processes to achieve forest and economic…
Publication Type: Report
Shrub Seed Banks in Mixed Conifer Forests of Northern California and the Role of Fire in Regulating Abundance
Year: 2012
Understory shrubs play important ecological roles in forests of the western US, but they can also impede early tree growth and lead to fire hazard concerns when very dense. Some of the more common genera (Ceanothus, Arctostaphylos, and Prunus) persist for long periods in the seed bank, even in areas where plants have been shaded out. To determine shrub seed density and investigate the feasibility of managing shrub abundance by regulating the size of the soil seed bank with fire, we sampled the seed bank in 24 mixed conifer forest stands throughout northern California. Twenty stands were…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Wildfire severity mediates fluxes of plant material and terrestrial invertebrates to mountain streams
Year: 2012
Wildfire effects upon riparian plant community structure, composition, and distribution may strongly influence the dynamic relationships between riparian vegetation and stream ecosystems. However, few studies have examined the influence of fire on these processes. To that end, we compared the quantity and composition of allochthonous inputs of plant material and terrestrial invertebrates among stream tributaries characterized by various degrees of burn severity 5 years post-fire in the Frank Church Wilderness of central Idaho, USA. The magnitude of inputs of coniferous leaf litter to unburned…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Predicting the Occurrence of Downy Brome (Bromus tectorum) in Central Oregon
Year: 2012
Where the nonnative annual grass downy brome proliferates, it has changed ecosystem processes, such as nutrient, energy, and water cycles; successional pathways; and fire regimes. The objective of this study was to develop a model that predicts the presence of downy brome in Central Oregon and to test whether high presence correlates with greater cover. Understory data from the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Forest Service's Current Vegetation Survey (CVS) database for the Deschutes National Forest, the Ochoco National Forest, and the Crooked River National Grassland were compiled, and…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Short- and medium-term effects of fuel reduction mulch treatments on soil nitrogen availability in Colorado conifer forests
Year: 2012
Mechanical fuel reduction treatments have been implemented on millions of hectares of western North American forests. The redistribution of standing forest biomass to the soil surface by mulching treatments has no ecological analog, and this practice may alter soil processes and forest productivity. We evaluated the effects of mulch addition on soil nitrogen availability at 15 fuel reduction projects in the southern Rocky Mountains and Colorado Plateau regions of Colorado. Mulching treatments removed 38 Mg ha−1 of standing forest biomass on average and added 2– 4 cm of irregular woody…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Moisture desorption in mechanically masticated fuels: effects of particle fracturing and fuelbed compaction
Year: 2012
Mechanical mastication is increasingly used as a wildland fuel treatment, reducing standing trees and shrubs to compacted fuelbeds of fractured woody fuels. One major shortcoming in our understanding of these fuelbeds is how particle fracturing influences moisture gain or loss, a primary determinant of fire behaviour. To better understand fuel moisture dynamics, we measured particle and fuelbed drying rates of masticated Arctostaphylos manzanita and Ceanothus velutinus shrubs, common targets of mastication in fire-prone western USA ecosystems. Drying rates of intact and fractured particles…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Properties affecting the consumption of sound and rotten coarse woody debris in northern Idaho: a preliminary investigation using laboratory fires
Year: 2012
This study evaluates the consumption of coarse woody debris in various states of decay. Samples from a northern Idaho mixed-conifer forest were classified using three different classification methods, ignited with two different ignition methods and consumption was recorded. Intrinsic properties that change with decay were measured including carbon to nitrogen ratio, density, heat content, lignin content, moisture content and surface area-to-volume ratio. Consumption for logs in different stages of decay is reported with characterisation of wood properties. Results indicate very decayed coarse…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Filling in the Blanks for Prescribed Fire in Shrublands: Developing Information to Support Improved Fire Planning
Year: 2009
By collecting information on fuel loading, fuel consumption, fuel moisture, site conditions and fire weather on fires in a variety of shrubland types, researchers are developing a fuller knowledge of shrubland fire effects. Results are being integrated into the software package CONSUME, a user-friendly software tool for predicting fuel consumption and emissions for fire, fuel and smoke management planning. Shrubland types studied include chamise chaparral in California, big sagebrush in Montana, pine flatwoods in Florida and Georgia, and pitch pine scrub in the New Jersey Pinelands.…
Publication Type: Report
A Practical Guide To Citizen-Agency Partnerships: Public Outreach Strategies for Fire and Fuel Management
Year: 2005
This Practical Guide is a companion to the video program Communication Strategies for Fire Management: Creating Effective Citizen-Agency Partnerships. The video is designed to assist land management personnel in working collaboratively with citizens for community fire and fuel reduction strategies. The DVD uses real world examples from successful agency communication programs to highlight effective approaches. It examines essential attributes for developing partnerships and offers a set of organizing principles to initiate an outreach strategy or to improve an existing one. This guide goes…
Publication Type: Report