Research Database
Displaying 1 - 9 of 9
Professional wildfire mitigation competency: a potential policy gap
Year: 2022
Studies show that effective strategies to mitigate the risk of structural damage in wildfires include defensible spaces and home hardening. Structures in the western United States are especially at risk. Several jurisdictions have adopted codes that require implementation of these strategies. However, construction and landscaping professionals are generally not required to obtain credentials indicating their competency in mitigating the risk of structural damage in a wildfire. We discuss the implications of this policy gap and propose a solution to bolster competency of professionals in…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Mapping the ethical landscape of wildland fire management: setting an agendum for research and deliberation on the applied ethics of wildland fire
Year: 2022
Background: Virtually every decision within wildland fire management includes substantial ethical dimensions. As pressures increase with ever-growing fires, it is becoming increasingly important to develop tools for assessing and acting on the values intrinsic to wildfire management. Aims: This paper aims to foster an applied ethics of wildland fire by bringing values to the forefront of wildland fire management debates, highlighting areas where ethical issues have been previously discussed, and providing a framework to assist in future discussion. Methods: Through a literature review and…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Potential operational delineations: new horizons for proactive, risk-informed strategic land and fire management
Year: 2022
Background The PODs (potential operational delineations) concept is an adaptive framework for cross-boundary and collaborative land and fire management planning. Use of PODs is increasingly recognized as a best practice, and PODs are seeing growing interest from federal, state, local, tribal, and non-governmental organizations. Early evidence suggests PODs provide utility for planning, communication, coordination, prioritization, incident response strategy development, and fuels mitigation and forest restoration. Recent legislative action codifies the importance of PODs by devoting…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Comparing Geography and Severity of Managed Wildfires in California and the Southwest USA before and after the Implementation of the 2009 Policy Guidance
Year: 2022
Managed wildfires, i.e., naturally ignited wildfires that are managed for resource benefits, have the potential to reduce fuel loads, minimize the effects of future wildfires, and restore critical natural processes across many forest landscapes. In the United States, the 2009 federal wildland fire policy guidance was designed to provide greater flexibility in the use of managed wildfires, but the effects of this policy on wildfires in the western US are not yet fully understood. Our goal was to compare managed and full suppression wildfires and to also analyze the differences between managed…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Multi-Objective Scheduling of Fuel Treatments to Implement a Linear Fuel Break Network
Year: 2022
We developed and applied a spatial optimization algorithm to prioritize forest and fuel management treatments within a proposed linear fuel break network on a 0.5 million ha Western US national forest. The large fuel break network, combined with the logistics of conducting forest and fuel management, requires that treatments be partitioned into a sequence of discrete projects, individually implemented over the next 10–20 years. The original plan for the network did not consider how linear segments would be packaged into projects and how projects would be prioritized for treatments over time,…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Governing wildfires: toward a systematic analytical framework
Year: 2022
Despite recent research, a systematic approach to understanding wildfire governance is lacking. This article addresses this deficit by systematically reviewing governance theories and concepts applied so far in the academic literature on wildfires as a step toward achieving their more effective and holistic management. We engage our findings with the wider governance literature to unlock new thinking on wildfires as a process and outcome. This comparative approach enables us to propose a novel framework for analyzing wildfire governance based on four pillars: (1) actor participation in…
Publication Type: Journal Article
A geographic strategy for cross-jurisdictional, proactive management of invasive annual grasses in Oregon
Year: 2022
On the Ground: Invasive annual grasses pose a widespread threat to western rangelands, and a strategic and proactive approach is needed to tackle this problem. Oregon partners used new spatial data to develop a geographic strategy for management of invasive annual grasses at landscape scales across jurisdictional boundaries. The geographic strategy considers annual and perennial herbaceous cover along with site resilience and resistance in categorizing areas into intact core, transitioning, and degraded areas. The geographic strategy provides 1) a conceptual framework for proactive management…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Ventenata ( Ventenata dubia ) Response to Grazing and Prescribed Fire on the Pacific Northwest Bunchgrass Prairie
Year: 2022
The exotic annual grass ventenata ( Ventenata dubia L.) is raising concern as it rapidly invades multiple ecosystem types within the United States, including sagebrush steppe, ponderosa pine forests, woodlands, and much of the Palouse and Pacific Northwest Bunchgrass Prairie (PNB). Despite increasing attention, little is known about the invasion dynamics of ventenata, especially its response to disturbances such as grazing and fire. In this study, we examined how cattle grazing and prescribed fire affect the abundance (standing crop, cover, frequency, and density) of ventenata and other plant…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Strategic Partnerships to Leverage Small Wins for Fine Fuels Management
Year: 2022
Rangeland wildfire is a wicked problem that cuts across a mosaic of public and private rangelands in the western United States and countless countries worldwide. Fine fuel accumulation in these ecosystems contributes to large-scale wildfires and undermines plant communities’ resistance to invasive annual grasses and resilience to disturbances such as fire. Yet it can be difficult to implement fuels management practices, such as grazing, in socially and politically complex contexts such as federally managed rangelands in the United States. In this Research-Partnership Highlight, we argue that…
Publication Type: Journal Article