Research Database
Displaying 1 - 20 of 24
Effects of long-term ecological research and cognitive biases on the evaluation of scientific information by public land managers in Oregon and Washington, USA
Year: 2025
Natural resource managers (managers) value and use scientific information to inform their decision-making process in a variety of ways. The scientific information managers use depends on a variety of factors, including the source of the information and ease of access. Barriers, such as paywalls, insufficient capacity, and information overload play an important role in determining what scientific information managers have access and attend to. Additionally, characteristics of managers themselves also influence what scientific information they prioritize and implement. Specific factors likely…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Return on investments in restoration and fuel treatments in frequent-fire forests of the American west: A meta-analysis
Year: 2024
Arid forests in the American West contend with overly dense stands and a need to reduce fuels and restore more natural fire regimes. Forest restoration efforts include fuel treatments, such as thinning and prescribed burning, that can reduce ground and ladder fuels. Restoration and fuel treatments have emerged as leading wildfire risk-reduction strategies in the American West, yet little is known about the cost-effectiveness of such programs. To evaluate forest restoration and fuel treatment benefits and costs, we conducted a meta-analysis of benefit-cost ratios for restoration benefit types…
Publication Type: Journal Article
The influence of wildfire risk reduction programs and practices on recreation visitation
Year: 2024
Background: The increasing extent and severity of uncharacteristic wildfire has prompted numerous policies and programs promoting landscape-scale fuels reduction. Aims: We used novel data sources to measure how recreation was influenced by fuels reduction efforts under the US Forest Service Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration (CFLR) Program. Methods: We used posts to four social media platforms to estimate the number of social media user-days within CFLR landscapes and asked: (1) did visitation within CFLR Program landscapes between…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Tamm review: A meta-analysis of thinning, prescribed fire, and wildfire effects on subsequent wildfire severity in conifer dominated forests of the Western US
Year: 2024
Increased understanding of how mechanical thinning, prescribed burning, and wildfire affect subsequent wildfire severity is urgently needed as people and forests face a growing wildfire crisis. In response, we reviewed scientific literature for the US West and completed a meta-analysis that answered three questions: (1) How much do treatments reduce wildfire severity within treated areas? (2) How do the effects vary with treatment type, treatment age, and forest type? (3) How does fire weather moderate the effects of treatments? We found overwhelming evidence that mechanical thinning with…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Forest thinning and prescribed burning treatments reduce wildfire severity and buffer the impacts of severe fire weather
Year: 2024
BackgroundThe capacity of forest fuel treatments to moderate the behavior and severity of subsequent wildfires depends on weather and fuel conditions at the time of burning. However, in-depth evaluations of how treatments perform are limited because encounters between wildfires and areas with extensive pre-fire data are rare. Here, we took advantage of a 1200-ha randomized and replicated experiment that burned almost entirely in a subsequent wildfire under a wide range of weather conditions. We compared the impacts of four fuel treatments on fire severity, including two thin-only, a thin-burn…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Recent Douglas-fir Mortality in the Klamath Mountains Ecoregion of Oregon: Evidence for a Decline Spiral
Year: 2023
Recent increases in Douglas-fir (Psuedotsuga menziesii var. menziesii) mortality in the Klamath Mountains ecoregion raise concerns about the long-term resilience of Douglas-fir in the ecoregion and increased potential for uncharacteristic wildfire. We used data from the USDA Forest Service Aerial Detection Survey and ninety-six field plots to explore the relationships between physiographic and climate variables and Douglas-fir mortality. Our results provide strong evidence for a decline spiral in which Douglas-fir growing on hot, dry sites (predisposing factor) are further stressed by drought…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Fuel Profiles and Biomass Carbon Following Bark Beetle Outbreaks: Insights for Disturbance Interactions from a Historical Silvicultural Experiment
Year: 2023
Anticipating consequences of disturbance interactions on ecosystem structure and function is a critical management priority as disturbance activity increases with warming climate. Across the Northern Hemisphere, extensive tree mortality from recent bark beetle outbreaks raises concerns about potential fire behavior and post-fire forest function. Silvicultural treatments (that is, partial or complete cutting of forest stands) may reduce outbreak severity and subsequent fuel loads, but longevity of pre-outbreak treatment effects on outbreak severity and post-outbreak fuel profiles remains…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Mechanical thinning restores ecological functions in a seasonally dry ponderosa pine forest in the inland Pacific Northwest, USA
Year: 2023
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. First, we measured several physiological responses of overstory trees that are associated with resilience, including radial growth, resin production, abundance of non-structural carbohydrates (NSC), and leaf area. Second, we investigated understory vegetation…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Prescribed fire after thinning increased resistance of sub-Mediterranean pine forests to drought events and wildfires
Year: 2023
Vegetation structure affects the vulnerability of a forest to drought events and wildfires. Management decisions, such as thinning intensity and type of understory treatment, influence competition for water resources and amount of fuel available. While heavy thinning effectively reduces tree water stress and intensity of a crown fire, the duration of these benefits may be limited by a fast growth response of the understory. Our aim was to study the effect of forest structure on pine forests vulnerability to extreme drought events and on the potential wildfire behaviour after management, with…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Harnessing Natural Disturbances: A Nature-Based Solution for Restoring and Adapting Dry Forests in the Western USA to Climate Change
Year: 2023
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? Mechanical fuel-reduction treatments (e.g., thinning) reduce landscape heterogeneity and appear ineffective since <1% of the treated area encounters fire each year and fires are still increasing. We propose and analyze a nature-based solution (NbS), using natural disturbances, to see whether it is feasible, how long it might take, and whether it…
Publication Type: Journal Article
The Cost of Forest Thinning Operations in the Western United States: A Systematic Literature Review and New Thinning Cost Model
Year: 2022
Mechanical forest thinning treatments are implemented across the western United States (US) to improve forest health and reduce hazardous fuels. However, the main challenge in thinning operations is low financial feasibility. This study synthesized the stump-to-truck cost of forest thinning operations in the western US based on operations research articles published over the last 40 years (1980–2020). We systematically selected and reviewed 20 thinning studies to analyze key variables affecting machine productivity and harvesting costs. The average cost of forest thinning was lowest for a…
Publication Type: Journal Article
The Economic Value of Fuel Treatments: A Review of the Recent Literature for Fuel Treatment Planning
Year: 2022
This review synthesizes the scientific literature on fuel treatment economics published since 2013 with a focus on its implications for land managers and policy makers. We review the literature on whether fuel treatments are financially viable for land management agencies at the time of implementation, as well as over the lifespan of fuel treatment effectiveness. We also review the literature that considers the broad benefits of fuel treatments across multiple sectors of society. Most studies find that fuel treatments are not financially viable for land management agencies based on revenue…
Publication Type: Journal Article
The importance of Indigenous cultural burning in forested regions of the Pacific West, USA
Year: 2021
Indigenous communities in the Pacific West of North America have long depended on fire to steward their environments, and they are increasingly asserting the importance of cultural burning to achieve goals for ecological and social restoration. We synthesized literature regarding objectives and effects of cultural burning in this region within an ecosystem services framework. Much scholarly literature focuses on why various species harvested from burned areas were important historically, while tribes and recent research increasingly stress a wide range of ecological and cultural benefits…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Repeated fall prescribed fire in previously thinned Pinus ponderosa increases growth and resistance to other disturbances
Year: 2021
In western North America beginning in the late 19th century, fire suppression and other factors resulted in dense ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa) forests that are now prone to high severity wildfire, insect attack, and root diseases. Thinning and prescribed fire are commonly used to remove small trees, fire-intolerant tree species, and shrubs, and to reduce surface and aerial fuels. These treatments can be effective at lowering future fire severity, but prescribed burns must be periodically repeated to maintain favorable conditions and are feasible only outside the historical summer wildfire…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Repeated fall prescribed fire in previously thinned Pinus ponderosa increases growth and resistance to other disturbances
Year: 2021
In western North America beginning in the late 19th century, fire suppression and other factors resulted in denseponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa) forests that are now prone to high severity wildfire, insect attack, and rootdiseases. Thinning and prescribed fire are commonly used to remove small trees, fire-intolerant tree species, andshrubs, and to reduce surface and aerial fuels. These treatments can be effective at lowering future fire severity,but prescribed burns must be periodically repeated to maintain favorable conditions and are feasible only outsidethe historical summer wildfire…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Short- and long-term effects of ponderosa pine fuel treatments intersected by the Egley Fire Complex, Oregon, USA
Year: 2019
Background Fuel treatments are widely used to alter fuels in forested ecosystems to mitigate wildfire behavior and effects. However, few studies have examined long-term ecological effects of interacting fuel treatments (commercial harvests, pre-commercial thinnings, pile and burning, and prescribed fire) and wildfire. Using annually fitted Landsat satellite-derived Normalized Burn Ratio (NBR) curves and paired pre-fire treated and untreated field sites, we tested changes in the differenced NBR (dNBR) and years since treatment as predictors of biophysical attributes one and nine years after…
Publication Type: Journal Article
The effects of thinning and burning on understory vegetation in North America: A meta-analysis
Year: 2017
Management in fire-prone ecosystems relies widely upon application of prescribed fire and/or fire-surrogate (e.g., forest thinning) treatments to maintain biodiversity and ecosystem function. The literature suggests fire and mechanical treatments proved more variable in their effects on understory vegetation as compared to their effects on stand structure. The growing body of work comparing fire and thinning effects on understory vegetation offers an opportunity to increase the generality of conclusions through meta-analysis. We conducted a meta-analysis to determine if there were consistent…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Does wildfire likelihood increase following insect outbreaks in conifer forests?
Year: 2015
Although there is acute concern that insect-caused tree mortality increases the likelihood or severity of subsequent wildfire, previous studies have been mixed, with findings typically based on stand-scale simulations or individual events. This study investigates landscape- and regional-scale wildfire likelihood following outbreaks of the two most prevalent native insect pests in the US Pacific Northwest (PNW): mountain pine beetle (MPB; Dendroctonus ponderosae) and western spruce budworm (WSB; Choristoneura freemani). We leverage seamless census data across numerous insect and fire events to…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Temperate forest health in an era of emerging megadisturbance
Year: 2015
Although disturbances such as fire and native insects can contribute to natural dynamics of forest health, exceptional droughts, directly and in combination with other disturbance factors, are pushing some temperate forests beyond thresholds of sustainability. Interactions from increasing temperatures, drought, native insects and pathogens, and uncharacteristically severe wildfire are resulting in forest mortality beyond the levels of 20th-century experience. Additional anthropogenic stressors, such as atmospheric pollution and invasive species, further weaken trees in some regions. Although…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Eastern Washington Forest Health: Hazards, Accomplishments and Restoration Strategy
Year: 2014
Much of the 10 million acres of forestland in eastern Washington faces serious threats to forest health. Decades of fire suppression and past management practices that changed the species and structure of these forests have put them at higher risk of damage by disease, insects and wildfire.
Publication Type: Report