Research Database
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Fire-resistant Plants for Home Landscapes: Reduce Wildfire Risk with Proper Plant Selection and Placement
Year: 2023
In the Pacific Northwest, fires are a natural part of the changing landscape. As homeowners continue to build in the wildland-urban interface, they must take special precautions to protect their lives, homes, and property.One way to do this is to create a defensible space around your home. This is the area between your home or other structures, where potential fuel (materials or vegetation) have been modified, reduced, or cleared to create a barrier and slow the spread of wildfire toward your home. A defensible space also allows room for firefighters to fight the fire safely. Three critical…
Publication Type: Report
Changes in wildfire occurrence and risk to homes from 1990 through 2019 in the Southern Rocky Mountains, USA
Year: 2023
Wildfires and housing development have increased since the 1990s, presenting unique challenges for wildfire management. However, it is unclear how the relative influences of housing growth and changing wildfire occurrence have altered risk to homes, or the potential for wildfire to threaten homes. We used a random forests model to predict burn probability in relation to weather variables at 1-km resolution and monthly intervals from 1990 through 2019 in the Southern Rocky Mountains ecoregion. We quantified risk by combining the predicted burn probabilities with decadal housing density. We…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Reducing hazardous fuels on nonindustrial private forests: factors influencing landowner decisions
Year: 2011
In mixed-ownership landscapes, fuels conditions on private lands have implications for fire risk on public lands and vice versa. The success of efforts to mitigate fire risk depends on the extent, efficacy, and coordination of treatments on nearby ownerships. Understanding factors in forest owners’ decisions to address the risk of wildland fire is therefore important. This research uses logistic regression to analyze mail survey data and identify factors in forest owners’ decisions to reduce hazardous fuels in the ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa) ecosystem on the east side of Oregon. Results…
Publication Type: Journal Article