Research Database
Displaying 241 - 251 of 251
The Forest, the Fire and the Fungi: Studying the Effects of Prescribed Burning on Mycorrhizal Fungi in Crater Lake National Park
Year: 2009
A first-of-its-kind study, conducted in a forest of old-growth ponderosa pine and white fir in Oregon’s Crater Lake National Park, explored the relationships among seasonal prescribed burning, an array of soil attributes, and mycorrhizal fungal fruiting patterns. This three-fold approach not only made the study unique, but also enabled researchers to separate the effects of fire treatment from the effects of soil attributes on fungal fruiting patterns. The study’s site encompassed three different prescribed burn treatments—applied in the early spring, late spring, and fall of 2002—as well as…
Publication Type: Report
Masticating Fuels: Effects on Prescribed Fire Behavior and Subsequent Vegetation Effects
Year: 2009
In fire management, there is an ongoing quest to find cost-effective, ecologically sound, and risk-reducing approaches to restoring dry conifer forests. So far little is known about the effectiveness of using mastication equipment in conjunction with prescribed burning to help meet management and restoration goals. Richy Harrod is the Deputy Fire Management Officer at the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest in Wenatchee, Washington. He and his colleagues began to address this knowledge gap and found that mastication may be a cost-effective and important tool for managers looking for additional…
Publication Type: Report
Burned landscapes of southwestern Oregon: what's in it for Northern Spotted Owls?
Year: 2008
Northern spotted owls are known to spend time in areas burned by wildfire, but there has been little scientific investigation of how and why they use these landscapes. A trio of wildfires in southwestern Oregon during the summers of 2001 and 2002 burned through dozens of documented spotted owl territories, providing a rare opportunity to study many important aspects of how these raptors respond to wildfire in dry forest ecosystems. For this project researchers used radio telemetry and demographic surveys to investigate habitat selection, home range size, occupancy, productivity and survival…
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
In a Ponderosa Pine Forest, Prescribed Fires Reduce the Likelihood of Scorched Earth
Year: 2008
The Malheur National Forest is located in the Blue Mountains on Oregon’s eastern side, the portion of the state that lies east of the Cascade Crest. In the mid 1990s, researchers and land managers conceived a suite of experiments to explore the effects of prescribed fire on forest health. The studies were designed to coincide with prescribed burns conducted by the USDA Forest Service. The experiments took place in the Emigrant Creek Ranger District, a remote area dominated by ponderosa pine. One of the research projects aimed to assess soil health after different intervals of fire frequency…
Publication Type: Report
Citizen-Agency Interactions in Planning and Decisionmaking After Large Fires
Year: 2007
This report reviews the growing literature on the concept of agency-citizen interactions after large wildfires. Because large wildfires have historically occurred at irregular intervals, research from related fields has been reviewed where appropriate. This issue is particularly salient in the West where excess fuel conditions indicate that the large wildfires occurring in many states are expected to continue to be a major problem for forest managers in the coming years. This review focuses on five major themes that emerge from prior research: contextual considerations, barriers and obstacles…
Publication Type: Government 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
The Effect of Wildland Fire on Aquatic Ecosystems in the Western USA
Year: 2003
The workshop on the Effects of Wildland Fire on Aquatic Ecosystems in the Western USA was convened in Boise, Idaho, USA in April 2002 to synthesize the emerging science and discussion relevant to such solutions. The organizing committee invited the authors in this special issue of Forest Ecology and Management to present new work or synthesize the current understanding (or lack of it) regarding the role of disturbance, fire, or fire-related management for aquatic populations, communities, or habitats and the physical and biological processes that maintain them. Scientists and managers…
Publication Type: Journal Article
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
Jurisdictional decision-making about building codes for resiliency and sustainability post-fire
Year:
The increasing frequency and size of wildfires across the U.S. motivates the growing need to identify how affected communities can rebuild sustainably and resiliently. This study examines the jurisdictional decision-making process surrounding one important class of sustainability and resiliency decisions, focusing on energy and wildfire building codes for housing reconstruction. Through 22 interviews with staff and elected officials in three jurisdictions impacted by Colorado's Marshall Fire, we identify factors influencing decisions. Code decisions varied across jurisdictions and, in some…
Publication Type: Journal Article