Research Database
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12
Adapt to more wildfire in western North American forests as climate changes
Year: 2017
Wildfires across western North America have increased in number and size over the past three decades, and this trend will continue in response to further warming. As a consequence, the wildland–urban interface is projected to experience substantially higher risk of climate-driven fires in the coming decades. Although many plants, animals, and ecosystem services benefit from fire, it is unknown how ecosystems will respond to increased burning and warming. Policy and management have focused primarily on specified resilience approaches aimed at resistance to wildfire and restoration of areas…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Fires following Bark Beetles: Factors Controlling Severity and Disturbance Interactions in Ponderosa Pine
Year: 2017
Previous studies have suggested that bark beetles and fires can be interacting disturbances, whereby bark beetle–caused tree mortality can alter the risk and severity of subsequent wildland fires. However, there remains considerable uncertainty around the type and magnitude of the interaction between fires following bark beetle attacks, especially in drier forest types such as those dominated by ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa Lawson & C. Lawson). We used a full factorial design across a range of factors thought to control bark beetle−fire interactions, including the temporal phase of the…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Fire and dwarf mistletoe (Viscaceae: Arceuthobium species) in western North America: contrasting Arceuthobium tsugense and Arceuthobium americanum
Year: 2017
Dwarf mistletoes (Viscaceae: Arceuthobium spp.) and fire interact in important ways in the coniferous forests of western North America. Fire directly affects dwarf mistletoes by killing the host, host branch, or heating/smoking the aerial shoots and fruits. Fire is a primary determinant of dwarf mistletoe distribution on the landscape, and time since fire controls many aspects of dwarf mistletoe epidemiology. Conversely, dwarf mistletoes can influence fire by causing changes in forest composition, structure, and fuels. Prescribed fire is important for management of dwarf mistletoes, while…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Impacts of lodgepole pine dwarf mistletoe (Arceuthobium americanum) infestation on stand structure and fuel load in lodgepole pine dominated forests in central Colorado
Year: 2017
Parasitic plants are capable of causing substantial alterations to plant communities through impacts on individual host plants. Lodgepole pine dwarf mistletoe is an important parasite in forests of the western USA that causes reductions to productivity and is thought to alter wildland fuel complexes. These impacts are hypothesized to vary with infestation severity. To test this, we used a linear mixed modeling approach to evaluate the relationship between dwarf mistletoe infestation severity and parameters representing stand structure and surface and canopy fuels in infested lodgepole pine…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Economic Opportunities and Trade-Offs in Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration
Year: 2017
We modeled forest restoration scenarios to examine socioeconomic and ecological trade-offs associated with alternative prioritization scenarios. The study examined four US national forests designated as priorities for investments to restore fire resiliency and generate economic opportunities to support local industry. We were particularly interested in economic trade-offs that would result from prioritization of management activities to address forest departure and wildfire risk to the adjacent urban interface. The results showed strong trade-offs and scale effects on production possibility…
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
A framework for developing safe and effective large-fire response in a new fire management paradigm
Year: 2017
The impacts of wildfires have increased in recent decades because of historical forest and fire management, a rapidly changing climate, and an increasingly populated wildland urban interface. This increasingly complex fire environment highlights the importance of developing robust tools to support risk-informed decision making. While tools have been developed to aid fire management, few have focused on large-fire management and those that have typically simplified the decision environment such that they are not operationally relevant. Additionally, fire managers need to be able to evaluate…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Interactions of predominant insects and diseases with climate change in Douglas-fir forests of western Oregon and Washington, U.S.A.
Year: 2017
Forest disturbance regimes are beginning to show evidence of climate-mediated changes, such as increasing severity of droughts and insect outbreaks. We review the major insects and pathogens affecting the disturbance regime for coastal Douglas-fir forests in western Oregon and Washington State, USA, and ask how future climate changes may influence their role in disturbance ecology. Although the physiological constraints of light, temperature, and moisture largely control tree growth, episodic and chronic disturbances interacting with biological factors have substantial impacts on the…
Publication Type: Journal Article
A review of challenges to determining and demonstrating efficiency of large fire management
Year: 2017
Characterising the impacts of wildland fire and fire suppression is critical information for fire management decision-making. Here, we focus on decisions related to the rare larger and longer-duration fire events, where the scope and scale of decision-making can be far broader than initial response efforts, and where determining and demonstrating efficiency of strategies and actions can be particularly troublesome. We organise our review around key decision factors such as context, complexity, alternatives, consequences and uncertainty, and for illustration contrast fire management in…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Towards enhanced risk management: planning, decision making and monitoring of US wildfire response
Year: 2017
Wildfire’s economic, ecological and social impacts are on the rise, fostering the realisation that business-as-usual fire management in the United States is not sustainable. Current response strategies may be inefficient and contributing to unnecessary responder exposure to hazardous conditions, but significant knowledge gaps constrain clear and comprehensive descriptions of how changes in response strategies and tactics may improve outcomes. As such, we convened a special session at an international wildfire conference to synthesise ongoing research focused on obtaining a better…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Effects of accelerated wildfire on future fire regimes and implications for the United States federal fire policy
Year: 2017
Wildland fire suppression practices in the western United States are being widely scrutinized by policymakers and scientists as costs escalate and large fires increasingly affect social and ecological values. One potential solution is to change current fire suppression tactics to intentionally increase the area burned under conditions when risks are acceptable to managers and fires can be used to achieve long-term restoration goals in fire adapted forests. We conducted experiments with the Envision landscape model to simulate increased levels of wildfire over a 50-year period on a 1.2 million…
Publication Type: Journal Article
NFPA’s Wildland/Urban Interface: Fire Department Wildfire Preparedness and Readiness Capabilities – Final Report
Year: 2017
The increasing frequency and intensity of wildland and wildland-urban interface (WUI) fires have become a significant concern in many parts of the United States and around the world. To address and manage this WUI fire risk, local fire departments around the country have begun to acquire the appropriate equipment and offer more training in wildfire response and suppression. There is also growing recognition of the importance of wildfire mitigation and public outreach about community risk reduction. Using survey and interview data from 46 senior officers from local fire departments around the…
decision making, management, wildland fire, Wildland-urban interface (WUI), fire suppression, adaptation
Publication Type: Report