Research Database

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Ecological Effects of Prescribed Fire Season: A Literature Review and Synthesis for Managers

Year: 2009

Prescribed burning may be conducted at times of the year when fires were infrequent historically, leading to concerns about potential adverse effects on vegetation and wildlife. Historical and prescribed fire regimes for different regions in the continental United States were compared and literature on season of prescribed burning synthesized. In regions and vegetation types where considerable differences in fuel consumption exist among burning seasons, the effects of prescribed fire season appears, for many ecological variables, to be driven more by fire-intensity differences among seasons…

Fire Effects and Fire Ecology, Prescribed Burning

fire regimes, synthesis, fire behavior

Publication Type: Report

The Ecological Importance of Severe Wildfires: Some Like it Hot

Year: 2008

Many scientists and forest land managers concur that past fire suppression, grazing, and timber harvesting practices have created unnatural and unhealthy conditions in the dry, ponderosa pine forests of the western United States. Specifically, such forests are said to carry higher fuel loads and experience fires that are more severe than those that occurred historically. It remains unclear, however, how far these generalizations can be extrapolated in time and space, and how well they apply to the more mesic ponderosa pine systems and to other forest systems within the western United States.…

Fish and Wildlife Habitat, Mixed-Conifer Management

fire regimes, fire severity, wildlife

Publication Type: Journal Article

Lessons of the Hayman fire: weeds, woodpeckers and fire severity

Year: 2008

This project took advantage of pre-fire data gathered within the perimeter of Colorado’s 2002 Hayman Fire. Researchers studied the unique fire regime of Front Range ponderosa pine forests, and fire effects on understory-plant communities and American Three-toed Woodpeckers. Results confirmed that historically, the diverse structure of these forests was maintained by a mixed-severity fire regime that included large areas of severe fire. In addition, researchers found that much of the burn meets habitat requirements for American Three-toed Woodpeckers, and that understory plant species that…

Fire Effects and Fire Ecology, Fish and Wildlife Habitat

fire severity, ponderosa pine, fire regimes, forest structure

Publication Type: Report