Research Database
Displaying 241 - 256 of 256
Climate Change in Grasslands, Shrublands, and Deserts of the Interior American West: A Review and Needs Assessment
Year: 2012
Recent research and species distribution modeling predict large changes in the distributions of species and vegetation types in the western interior of the United States in response to climate change. This volume reviews existing climate models that predict species and vegetation changes in the western United States, and it synthesizes knowledge about climate change impacts on the native fauna and flora of grasslands, shrublands and deserts of the interior American West. Species' responses will depend not only on their physiological tolerances but also on their phenology, establishment…
Publication Type: Report
Comparative Hazard Assessment for Protected Species in a Fire-Prone Landscape
Year: 2012
We conducted a comparative hazard assessment for 325,000 ha in a fire-prone area of southwest Oregon, USA. The landscape contains a variety of land ownerships, fire regimes, and management strategies. Our comparative hazard assessment evaluated the effects of two management strategies on crown fire potential and northern spotted owl (Strix occidentalis caurina) conservation: (1) no action, and (2) active manipulation of hazardous fuels. Model simulations indicated that active management of sites with high fire hazard was more favorable to spotted owl conservation over the long term (75 years…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Advancing effects analysis for integrated, large-scale wildfire risk assessment
Year: 2011
In this article, we describe the design and development of a quantitative, geospatial risk assessment tool intended to facilitate monitoring trends in wildfire risk over time and to provide information useful in prioritizing fuels treatments and mitigation measures. The research effort is designed to develop, from a strategic view, a first approximation of how both fire likelihood and intensity influence risk to social, economic, and ecological values at regional and national scales. Three main components are required to generate wildfire risk outputs: (1) burn probability maps generated from…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Simulating fuel treatment effects in dry forests of the western United States: testing the principles of a fire-safe forest
Year: 2011
We used the Fire and Fuels Extension to the Forest Vegetation Simulator (FFE-FVS) to simulate fuel treatment effects on 45 1 62 stands in low- to midelevation dry forests (e.g., ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa Doug!. ex. P. & C. Laws.) and Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii (Mirb.) Franco) of the western United States. We evaluated treatment effects on predicted post-treatment fire behavior (fire type) and fire hazard (torching index). FFE-FVS predicts that thinning and surface fuel treatments reduced crown fire behavior relative to no treatment; a large proportion of stands were…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Northwest Forest Plan -- The First 15 Years: Status and Trends of Northern Spotted Owl Populations and Habitats
Year: 2011
This is the second in a series of periodic monitoring reports on northern spotted owl (Strix occidentalis caurina) population and habitat trends on federally administered lands since implementation of the Northwest Forest Plan in 1994.Here we summarize results from a population analysis that included data from long-term demographic studies during 1985–2008. This data was analyzed separately by study area, and also in a meta-analysis across all study areas to assess temporal and spatial patterns in fecundity, apparent survival, recruitment, and annual rates of population change. Estimated…
Publication Type: Report
Introducing FuelCalc: A New Tool that Helps Turn Static Inventory Data into Actionable Information
Year: 2010
Fuel and fire managers perform fuel treatments to manage and restore ecosystems and protect resources. In order to plan effective fuel treatments that accomplish objectives, managers need to analyze fuel conditions and document the expected fire behavior and fire effects both before and after fuel treatment. To help accomplish these goals, a new software tool named FuelCalc was created. FuelCalc facilitates use of a wide range of inventory data and fuel characteristics to help calculate fuel quantities and qualities to estimate potential fire behavior, fire effects, and smoke production. By…
Publication Type: Report
Wildfire Risk Management on a Landscape with Public and Private Ownership: Who Pays for Protection?
Year: 2010
Wildfire, like many natural hazards, affects large landscapes with many landowners and the risk individual owners face depends on both individual and collective protective actions. In this study, we develop a spatially explicit game theoretic model to examine the strategic interaction between landowners’ hazard mitigation decisions on a landscape with public and private ownership. We find that in areas where ownership is mixed, the private landowner performs too little fuel treatment as they ‘‘free ride’’—capture benefits without incurring the costs—on public protection, while areas with…
Publication Type: Journal Article
The evaluation of meta-analysis techniques for quantifying prescribed fire effects on fuel loadings
Year: 2009
Models and effect-size metrics for meta-analysis were compared in four separate meta-analyses quantifying surface fuels after prescribed fires in ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa Dougl. ex Laws.) forests of the Western United States. An aggregated data set was compiled from 8 published reports that contained data from 65 fire treatment units. Downed woody and organic fuels were partitioned into five classes, and four meta-analyses were performed on each in a 2 by 2 factorial combination of fixed-effects vs. mixed-effects models with a difference-based metric (Hedges’ d) vs. a ratio-based…
Publication Type: Report
FOFEM: The First-Order Fire Effects Model Adapts to the 21st Century
Year: 2009
Technology is playing an increasingly pivotal role in the efficiency and effectiveness of fire management. The First Order Fire Effects Model (FOFEM) is a widely used computer application that predicts the immediate or ‘first-order’ effects of fire: fuel consumption, tree mortality, emissions, and soil heating. FOFEM’s simple operation and comprehensive features have made it a workhorse for fire and resource professionals who need to be able to predict, assess and plan for fire’s effects. Over the last decade FOFEM has undergone several upgrades as developers continue to improve function and…
Publication Type: Report
Consume 3.0 -- A Software Tool for Computing Fuel Consumption
Year: 2009
Knowing when, where and how fire should be applied is critical for land managers planning to use fire prescriptively for land management goals, or allowing fires ignited naturally to burn. Myriad variables need to be taken into consideration to determine how fire will consume different fuels. Consume, version 3.0 is a user-friendly software that incorporates the Fuel Characteristic Classification System (FCCS) to predict fuel consumption, pollutant emissions, and heat release. A flexible tool, Consume 3.0 makes these calculations based on fuel loadings, fuel moisture and other environmental…
Publication Type: Report
Assessing fuel treatment effectiveness using satellite imagery and spatial statistics
Year: 2009
Understanding the influences of forest management practices on wildfire severity is critical in fire-prone ecosystems of the western United States. Newly available geospatial data sets characterizing vegetation, fuels, topography, and burn severity offer new opportunities for studying fuel treatment effectiveness at regional to national scales. In this study, we used ordinary least-squares (OLS) regression and sequential autoregression (SAR) to analyze fuel treatment effects on burn severity for three recent wildfires: the Camp 32 fire in western Montana, the School fire in southeastern…
Publication Type: Journal Article
ArcFuels: Integrating Wildfire Models and Risk Analysis into Landscape Fuels Management
Year: 2009
That risk from wildfire continues to grow across the United States is not a new problem. Managing forest fuels in the real world—such as thinning and burning prescriptively—to reduce fuel loads have been used effectively to reduce the risk of severe wildfire. These actions have been helped by a variety of software tools that assist managers in planning and evaluating fuel treatments to ensure they are cost effective in terms of impeding the growth of future large, severe wildfires. While many landscape planning tools do a fine job within the scope of their capabilities, the process of fine…
Publication Type: Report
Behavior Modification: Tempering Fire at the Landscape Level
Year: 2008
With a history of management choices that have suppressed fire in the West, ecosystems in which fire would play a vital role have developed tremendous fuel loads. As a result, conditions are prime for fires to grow large, escape attack measures, and become catastrophic conflagrations that damage watersheds, forest resources, and homes. With a quiver of treatment options, land managers have successfully used prescribed burning and thinning to modify landscapes at the stand level. But planning treatments to modify fuel build up on a patch of forest is vastly different than planning treatments…
Publication Type: Report
Wildlife and invertebrate response to fuel reduction treatments in dry coniferous forests of western US
Year: 2006
This paper synthesizes available information on the effects of hazardous fuel reduction treatments on terrestrial wildlife and invertebrates in dry coniferous forest types in the West. We focused on thinning and/or prescribed fire studies in ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa) and dry-type Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii ), lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta), and mixed coniferous forests. Overall, there are tremendous gaps in information needed to evaluate the effects of fuel reduction on the majority of species found in our focal area. Differences among studies in location, fuel treatment type…
Publication Type: Report
Social Science to Improve Fuels Management: A Synthesis of Research Relevant to Communicating with Homeowners About Fuels Management
Year: 2006
The large fires in southern California during the fall of 2003 highlighted the significant fire hazard many wildland-urban interface communities and homes currently face. Despite this risk, people continue to leave metropolitan areas for the beauty and tranquility of the wildland-urban interface. The peaceful natural views instill a treasured sense of place and privacy among residents, which can make it challenging to manage the environment and reduce fuels (Lee and Tribe 1987, Lee et al. 1987, Shands 1988, Sullivan 1994, Weise and Martin 1994). Firefighting and land management agencies as…
Publication Type: Report
Social science in fuel management: an annotated bibliography of prescribed fire
Year: 2002
This annotated bibliography is collected from professional journals in natural resource management and sociology, conference proceedings, and technical reports. It is categorized into thirteen sections: acceptability, fire in wilderness, general, history, institutions, media, policy, public attitude toward wildfire, public involvement, public perception of prescribed burning, risk perception, social psychology, and wildland-urban interface.
Publication Type: Report