Research Database
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7
Disequilibrium of fire-prone forests sets the stage for a rapid decline in conifer dominance during the 21st century
Year: 2018
The impacts of climatic changes on forests may appear gradually on time scales of years to centuries due to the long generation times of trees. Consequently, current forest extent may not reflect current climatic patterns. In contrast with these lagged responses, abrupt transitions in forests under climate change may occur in environments where alternative vegetation states are influenced by disturbances, such as fire. The Klamath forest landscape (northern California and southwest Oregon, USA) is currently dominated by high biomass, biodiverse temperate coniferous forests, but climate change…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Developing an online tool for identifying at-risk populations to wildfire smoke hazards
Year: 2018
Wildfire episodes pose a significant public health threat in the United States. Adverse health impacts associated with wildfires occur near the burn area as well as in places far downwind due to wildfire smoke exposures. Health effects associated with exposure to particulate matter arising from wildfires can range from mild eye and respiratory tract irritation to more serious outcomes such as asthma exacerbation, bronchitis, and decreased lung function. Real-time operational forecasts of wildfire smoke concentrations are available but they are not readily integrated with information on…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Estimating post-fire debris-flow hazards prior to wildfire using a statistical analysis of historical distributions of fire severity from remote sensing data
Year: 2018
Following wildfire, mountainous areas of the western United States are susceptible to debris flow during intense rainfall. Convective storms that can generate debris flows in recently burned areas may occur during or immediately after the wildfire, leaving insufficient time for development and implementation of risk mitigation strategies. We present a method for estimating post-fire debris-flow hazards before wildfire using historical data to define the range of potential fire severities for a given location based on the statistical distribution of severity metrics obtained from remote…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Covering Wildfires: Media Emphasis and Silence after the Carlton and Okanogan Complex Wildfires
Year: 2018
This article examines salient topics and textual silences in the media coverage of two major wildfires in Washington State. A significant body of research has examined the importance of media coverage in framing disaster events, yet gaps remain in scholarly understanding of wildfire media coverage. In this article, we explore the following questions: How did the print media cover the Carlton Complex and Okanogan Complex fires in Washington State? What topics and locations were generally featured or ignored, and why? How did wildfire media coverage change after firefighter deaths? To answer…
Publication Type: Journal Article
A 35,000 yr fire history from the Oregon Coast Range, USA
Year: 2018
We extend a published 9000 yr fire history record from Little Lake, in the Oregon Coast Range, to 35,000 yr and compare it with the established pollen record from the site. The fire history is based on a high-resolution analysis of charcoal preserved in lake sediments, providing a fire history record that spans the Last Glacial Maximum in North America. The data enabled us to address questions regarding the interactions between large-scale climate changes associated with the shift from glacial to interglacial conditions and the accompanying changes in forest vegetation and fire regimes. The…
Publication Type: Book Chapter
How does forest recovery following moderate-severity fire influence effects of subsequent wildfire in mixed-conifer forests?
Year: 2018
Given regional increases in fire activity in western North American forests, understanding how fire influences the extent and effects of subsequent fires is particularly relevant. Remotely sensed estimates of fire effects have allowed for spatial portioning into different severity categories based on the degree of fire-caused vegetation change. Fire effects between minimal overstory tree mortality (< 20%) and complete (or nearly complete) overstory tree mortality (> 95%) are often lumped into a single category referred to as moderate severity. In this paper, we investigated how burned…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Restoring historical forest conditions in a diverse inland Pacific Northwest landscape
Year: 2018
A major goal of managers in fire-prone forests is restoring historical structure and composition to promote resilience to future drought and disturbance. To accomplish this goal, managers require information about reference conditions in different forest types, as well as tools to determine which individual trees to retain or remove to approximate those reference conditions. We used dendroecological reconstructions and General Land Office records to quantify historical forest structure and composition within a 13,600 ha study area in eastern Oregon where the USDA Forest Service is planning…
Publication Type: Journal Article