Research Database
Displaying 161 - 180 of 279
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
Rethinking the wildland fire management system
Year: 2018
In the western United States and elsewhere, the need to change society’s relationship with wildfire is well-recognized. Suppressing fewer fires in fire-prone systems is promoted to escape existing feedback loops that lead to ever worsening conditions and increasing risks to responders and communities. Our primary focus is how to catalyze changes in fire manager behavior such that responses are safer, more effective, and capitalize on opportunities for expanded use of fire. We daylight deep-seated, systemic drivers of behavior, and in so doing, challenge ingrained ways of thinking and acting…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Forest landscapes as social-ecological systems and implications for management
Year: 2018
Many of the most pressing threats to forests result from complex interactions between multiple stressors and require management on large spatial and temporal scales. For this reason, many ecosystem managers have begun to recognize the need to consider the broader context of decisions, and how outcomes of past, present and future decisions in one location may interact with outcomes of such decisions in other locations nearby. The landscape has been put forth as an appropriate unit for such holistic approaches to management. However, as there are differing definitions of landscapes, it can be…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Toward Shared Stewardship Across Landscapes: An Outcome-Based Investment Strategy
Year: 2018
Managers and owners of forests across the Nation face urgent challenges, among them catastrophic wildfires, invasive species, drought, and epidemics of forest insects and disease. Of particular concern are longer fire seasons and the rising size and severity of wildfires, along with the expanding risk to communities, natural resources, and the safety of firefighters. Accordingly, at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, we are rethinking our approach to land management. We will work closely with States to set landscape-scale priorities for targeted treatments in areas with the…
Publication Type: Report
A comparison of the US National Fire Danger Rating System (NFDRS) with recorded fire occurrence and final fire size
Year: 2018
Most previous research has assessed the ability of the National Fire Danger Rating System (NFDRS) to portray fire activity at either single sites or on small spatial scales, despite it being a nation-wide system. This study seeks to examine the relationships between a set of NFDRS fire danger indices (Fire Danger Ratings, Staffing Level and the Ignition Component) and measures of fire activity (fire occurrence and final fire size) across the entire conterminous US over an 8-year period. We reveal that different regions of the US display different levels of correspondence between each of the…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Wildfire risk reduction in the United States: Leadership staff perceptions of local fire department roles and responsibilities
Year: 2018
As wildland fires have had increasing negative impacts on a range of human values, in many parts of the United States (U.S.) and around the world, collaborative risk reduction efforts among agencies, homeowners, and fire departments are needed to improve wildfire safety and mitigate risk. Using interview data from 46 senior officers from local fire departments around the U.S., we examine how leadership staff view their departments’ roles and responsibilities in wildfire risk reduction. Overall, our findings indicate that local fire personnel are often performing a variety of mitigation tasks…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Cross-boundary cooperation for landscape management: Collective action and social exchange among individual private forest landowners
Year: 2018
The landscape is an ideal spatial extent for managing forests because many ecological processes and disturbances occur on such scales. Moreover, landscape-level decision-making processes can improve the efficiency of forest management, as when many owners of small parcels increase the economy of scale of their operations by jointly hiring labor or selling products. Despite the potential benefits of managing at the landscape level, cooperation on management activities across property boundaries is rare among private landowners and poorly understood. We used a comparative case study approach to…
Publication Type: Journal Article
NWCG Smoke Management Guide for Prescribed Fire
Year: 2018
The NWCG Smoke Management Guide for Prescribed Fire contains information on prescribed fire smoke management techniques, air quality regulations, smoke monitoring, modeling, communication, public perception of prescribed fire and smoke, climate change, practical meteorological approaches and smoke tools. The primary focus of this document is to serve as the textbook in support of NWCG’s RX-410, Smoke Management Techniques course which is required for the position of Prescribed Fire Burn Boss Type 2 (RXB2) The Guide is useful to all who use prescribed fire, from private land owners to federal…
Publication Type: Report
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
Historical perspective on the influence of wildfire policy, law, and informal institutions on management and forest resilience in a multiownership, frequent-fire, coupled human and natural system in Oregon, USA
Year: 2017
We examine the influence of wildfire institutions on management and forest resilience over time, drawing on research from a multiownership, frequent-fire, coupled human and natural system (CHANS) in the eastern Cascades of Oregon, USA. We constructed social-ecological histories of the study area’s three main landowner groups (national forest, private corporate, and tribal) using a historical framework (1905–2010). Our findings highlight two infrequently recognized linkages of multiownership, frequent-fire CHANS: (1) informal institutions (e.g., cultural norms, knowledge system and fire…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Decade-Long Plant Community Responses to Shrubland Fuel Hazard Reduction
Year: 2017
Fuel hazard reduction treatments such as prescribed fire and mastication are widely used to reduce fuel hazard. These treatments help protect people from wildfire, yet may not be mutually beneficial for people and ecosystems in areas adapted to infrequent crown fire. Short-term studies indicate that some fuel hazard reduction treatments can be detrimental to biodiversity and ecosystem function, suggesting that land managers face an acute dilemma between protecting people or ecosystems. However, the long-term ecological trajectories and fuel hazard outcomes of fuel treatments are poorly…
Publication Type: Journal Article
An Evaluation of the Forest Service Hazardous Fuels Treatment Program—Are We Treating Enough to Promote Resiliency or Reduce Hazard?
Year: 2017
The National Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy recognizes that wildfire is a necessary natural process in many ecosystems and strives to reduce conflicts between fire-prone landscapes and people. In an effort to mitigate potential negative wildfire impacts proactively, the Forest Service fuels program reduces wildland fuels. As part of an internal program assessment, we evaluated the extent of fuel treatments and wildfire occurrence within lands managed by the National Forest System (NFS) between 2008 and 2012. We intersected fuel treatments with historic disturbance rates to assess…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Efficacy of resource objective wildfires for restoration of ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa) forests in northern Arizona
Year: 2017
Current conditions in dry forests of the western United State have given rise to policy mandates for accelerated ecological restoration on U.S. National Forest System and other public lands. In southwestern ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa Laws.) forests, mechanized tree thinning and prescribed fire are common restoration treatments but are not acceptable for all sites. Currently there is much interest in managing naturally ignited fires to accomplish restoration objectives but few studies have systematically examined the efficacy of such “resource objective” wildfires for restoring historical…
Publication Type: Journal Article
An empirical machine learning method for predicting potential fire control locations for pre-fire planning and operational fire management
Year: 2017
During active fire incidents, decisions regarding where and how to safely and effectively deploy resources to meet management objectives are often made under rapidly evolving conditions, with limited time to assess management strategies or for development of backup plans if initial efforts prove unsuccessful. Under all but the most extreme fire weather conditions, topography and fuels are significant factors affecting potential fire spread and burn severity. We leverage these relationships to quantify the effects of topography, fuel characteristics, road networks and fire suppression effort…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Decomposition Rates for Hand-Piled Fuels
Year: 2017
Hand-constructed piles in eastern Washington and north-central New Mexico were weighed periodically between October 2011 and June 2015 to develop decay-rate constants that are useful for estimating the rate of piled biomass loss over time. Decay-rate constants (k) were determined by fitting negative exponential curves to time series of pile weight for each site. Piles at the Washington site (k = 0.027/year) decomposed significantly more slowly than piles at the New Mexico site (k = 0.064/year). Significant differences in k for each site may be a function of a between-site variation in pile…
Publication Type: Report
Shared visions, future challenges: a case study of three Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program locations
Year: 2017
The USDA Forest Service is encouraging the restoration of select forest ecosystems through its Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program (CFLRP). Collaboration is often necessary to implement landscape-scale management projects such as these, and a substantial body of research has examined the benefits and limitations of using collaboration as a tool for improving relationships, trust, and other outcomes among stakeholder groups. However, limited research has investigated the use of collaboration to achieve large-scale ecological restoration goals. Restoration poses some unique…
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
The influence of incident management teams on the deployment of wildfire suppression resources
Year: 2017
Despite large commitments of personnel and equipment to wildfire suppression, relatively little is known about the factors that affect how many resources are ordered and assigned to wildfire incidents and the variation in resources across incident management teams (IMTs). Using detailed data on suppression resource assignments for IMTs managing the highest complexity wildfire incidents (Type 1 and Type 2), this paper examines daily suppression resource use and estimates the variation in resource use between IMTs. Results suggest that after controlling for fire and landscape characteristics,…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Using an agent-based model to examine forest management outcomes in a fire-prone landscape in Oregon, USA.
Year: 2017
Fire-prone landscapes present many challenges for both managers and policy makers in developing adaptive behaviors and institutions. We used a coupled human and natural systems framework and an agent-based landscape model to examine how alternative management scenarios affect fire and ecosystem services metrics in a fire-prone multiownership landscape in the eastern Cascades of Oregon. Our model incorporated existing models of vegetation succession and fire spread and information from original empirical studies of landowner decision making. Our findings indicate that alternative management…
Publication Type: Journal Article
All Lands Approaches to Fire Management in the Pacific West: A Typology
Year: 2017
Since 2009, the US Department of Agriculture Forest Service has promoted an “all lands approach” to forest restoration, particularly relevant in the context of managing wildfire. To characterize its implementation, we undertook an inventory of what we refer to as fire-focused all lands management (ALM) projects, defined as projects in which fuels reduction treatments are planned or implemented across more than one landownership to reduce wildfire risk or increase forest resilience to wildfire. We focused on regions of Washington, Oregon, and California dominated by dry, fire-prone forests and…
Publication Type: Journal Article