Research Database
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6
Evidence for scale‐dependent topographic controls on wildfire spread
Year: 2018
Wildfire ecosystems are thought to be self‐regulated through pattern–process interactions between ignition frequency and location, and patterns of burned and recovering vegetation. Yet, recent increases in the frequency of large wildfires call into question the application of self‐organization theory to landscape resilience. Topography represents a stable bottom‐up template upon which fire interacts as both a physical and an ecological process. However, it is unclear how topographic control changes geographically and across spatial scales. We analyzed fire perimeter and topography data from…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Prescribed fire regimes subtly alter ponderosa pine forest plant community structure
Year: 2018
Prescribed fire is an active management tool used to address wildfire hazard and ecological concerns associated with fire exclusion and suppression over the past century. Despite widespread application in the United States, there is considerable inconsistency and lack of information regarding the extent to which specific outcomes are achieved and under what prescribed fire regimes, particularly in regard to ecological goals related to plant community structure. We quantify differences and patterns in plant functional group abundance, species richness and diversity, and other key forest…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Fuel mass and stand structure 13 years after logging of a severely burned ponderosa pine forest in northeastern Oregon, U.S.A
Year: 2018
Stand structure and fuel mass were measured in 2011, 13 years after logging of a seasonally dry, ponderosa pine-dominated forest that had burned severely in the 1996 Summit Wildfire, Malheur National Forest, northeastern Oregon, U.S.A. Data are compared to those taken one year after post-fire logging (1999), and analyzed in the context of a second fire (Sunshine Fire) that burned through one of the four treatment blocks in 2008. Three treatments were evaluated in a randomized block experiment: unlogged control, commercial harvest (most dead merchantable trees removed), and fuel reduction…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Recent post-wildfire salvage logging benefits local and landscape floral and bee communities
Year: 2018
Understanding the implications of shifts in disturbance regimes for plants and pollinators is essential for successful land management. Wildfires are essential natural disturbances that are important drivers of forest biodiversity, and there is often pressure to respond to wildfire with management like post-wildfire logging (i.e., removal of dead trees for economic value immediately following wildfire). We investigated how local floral and bee density, species richness, and community composition and dispersion were influenced by post-wildfire logging, and how these effects differed between an…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Wildfire smoke cools summer river and stream water temperatures
Year: 2018
To test the hypothesis that wildfire smoke can cool summer river and stream water temperatures by attenuating solar radiation and air temperature, we analyzed data on summer wildfire smoke, solar radiation, air temperatures, precipitation, river discharge, and water temperatures in the lower Klamath River Basin in Northern California. Previous studies have focused on the effect of combustion heat on water temperatures during fires and the effect of riparian vegetation losses on postfire water temperatures, but we know of no studies of the effects of wildfire smoke on river or stream water…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Decreasing fire season precipitation increased recent western US forest wildfire activity
Year: 2018
Western United States wildfire increases have been generally attributed to warming temperatures, either through effects on winter snowpack or summer evaporation. However, near-surface air temperature and evaporative demand are strongly influenced by moisture availability and these interactions and their role in regulating fire activity have never been fully explored. Here we show that previously unnoted declines in summer precipitation from 1979 to 2016 across 31–45% of the forested areas in the western United States are strongly associated with burned area variations. The number of wetting…
Publication Type: Journal Article