Research Database
Displaying 61 - 78 of 78
Surface fuel treatments in young, regenerating stands affect wildfire severity in a mixed conifer forest, eastside Cascade Range, Washington, USA
Year: 2012
Previous studies have debated the flammability of young regenerating stands, especially those in a matrix of mature forest, and no consensus has emerged as to whether young stands are inherently prone to high severity wildfire. This topic has recently been addressed using spatial imagery, and weak inferences were made given the scale mismatch between the coarse resolution of spatial imagery and the fine resolution of mechanisms driving fire severity. We collected empirical stand and fire-severity data from 44 regenerating stands that are interspersed in mature, mid-elevation forests in the…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Surface Fire Intensity Influences Simulated Crown Fire Behavior in Lodgepole Pine Forests with Recent Mountain Pine Beetle-Caused Tree Mortality
Year: 2012
Recent bark beetle outbreaks have had a significant impact on forests throughout western North America and have generated concerns about interactions and feedbacks between beetle attacks and fire. However, research has been hindered by a lack of experimental studies and the use of fire behavior models incapable of accounting for the heterogeneous fuel complexes. We populated the Wildland-Urban Interface Fire Dynamics Simulator with data from 11 field sites to investigate the effect of mountain pine beetle (MPB)-caused tree mortality on simulated crown fire behavior across a range of surface…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Effects of Ungulate Herbivory on Aspen, Cottonwood, and Willow Development Under Forest Fuels Treatment Regimes
Year: 2012
Herbivory by domestic and wild ungulates can dramatically affect vegetation structure, composition and dynamics in nearly every terrestrial ecosystem of the world. These effects are of particular concern in forests of western North America, where intensive herbivory by native and domestic ungulates has the potential to substantially reduce or eliminate deciduous, highly palatable species of aspen (Populus tremuloides), cottonwood (Populus trichocarpa), and willow (Salix spp.). In turn, differential herbivory pressure may favor greater establishment of unpalatable conifers that serve as ladder…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Development of Risk Matrices for Evaluating Climatic Change Responses of Forested Habitats
Year: 2012
We present an approach to assess and compare risk from climate change among multiple species through a risk matrix, in which managers can quickly prioritize for species that need to have strategies developed, evaluated further, or watched. We base the matrix upon earlier work towards the National Climate Assessment for potential damage to infrastructures from climate change. Risk is defined here as the product of the likelihood of an event occurring and the consequences or impact of that event. In the context of species habitats, the likelihood component is related to the potential changes in…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Meta-analysis of avian and small-mammal response to fire severity and fire surrogate treatments in US fire-prone forests
Year: 2012
Management in fire-prone ecosystems relies widely upon application of prescribed fire and/or fire surrogate (e.g., forest thinning) treatments to maintain biodiversity and ecosystem function. Recently, published literature examining wildlife response to fire and fire management has increased rapidly. However, none of this literature has been synthesized quantitatively, precluding assessment of consistent patterns of wildlife response among treatment types. Using meta-analysis, we examined the scientific literature on vertebrate demographic responses to burn severity (low/moderate, high), fire…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Impact of postfire logging on soil bacterial and fungal communities on biogeochemistry in a mixed-conifer forest in central Oregon
Year: 2012
Aims Postfire logging recoups the economic value of timber killed by wildfire, but whether such forest management activity supports or impedes forest recovery in stands differing in structure from historic conditions remains unclear. The aim of this study was to determine the impact of mechanical logging after wildfire on soil bacterial and fungal communities and other measures influencing soil productivity. Methods We compared soil bacterial and fungal communities and biogeochemical responses of 1) soils compacted, and 2) soils compacted and then subsoiled, to 3) soils receiving no…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Fuel treatment impacts on estimated wildfire carbon loss from forests in Montana, Oregon, California, and Arizona
Year: 2012
Using forests to sequester carbon in response to anthropogenically induced climate change is being considered across the globe. A recent U.S. executive order mandated that all federal agencies account for sequestration and emissions of greenhouse gases, highlighting the importance of understanding how forest carbon stocks are influenced by wildfire. This paper reports the effects of the most common forest fuel reduction treatments on carbon pools composed of live and dead biomass as well as potential wildfire emissions from six different sites in four western U.S. states. Additionally, we…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Photo Series for Quantifying Natural Fuels Volume XI : Eastern Oregon Sagebrush - Steppe and Spotted Owl Nesting Habitat in the Pacific Northwest
Year: 2012
Three series of photographs display a range of natural conditions and fuel loadings for sagebrush-steppe types that are ecotonal with grasses, western juniper, and ponderosa pine in eastern Oregon, and one series of photographs displays a range of natural conditions and fuel loadings for northern spotted owl nesting habitat in forest types in Washington and Oregon. Each group of photos includes inventory information summarizing vegetation composition, structure, and loading; woody material loading and density by size class; forest floor depth and loading; and various site characteristics. The…
Publication Type: Report
Woodpecker Habitat After the Fire
Year: 2011
Public land managers are asked to minimize fuel levels after fires, including using techniques such as salvage logging. They are also responsible for maintaining suitable wildlife habitat, especially for species of concern to state and federal agencies. An area where these responsibilities could conflict is in the use of salvage logging in burned-over areas that also represent good habitat for certain wildlife such as woodpeckers. Controversy over this conflict has led to litigation. Public land management agencies need consistent design criteria to maintain suitable habitats for these birds…
Publication Type: Report
Assessing Fuel Treatment Effectiveness After the Tripod Complex Fires
Year: 2011
Over the past 50 years, wildfire frequency and area burned have increased in the dry forests of western North America. To help reduce high surface fuel loads and potential wildfire severity, a variety of fuel treatments are applied. In spite of the common use of these management practices, there have been relatively few opportunities to quantitatively measure their efficacy in wildfires. That changed with the 2006 Tripod Complex fires in the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest in Washington—one of the largest fire events in Washington state over the past five decades. A serendipitous…
Publication Type: Report
Northwest Forest Plan -- The First 15 Years: Status and Trends of Northern Spotted Owl Populations and Habitats
Year: 2011
This is the second in a series of periodic monitoring reports on northern spotted owl (Strix occidentalis caurina) population and habitat trends on federally administered lands since implementation of the Northwest Forest Plan in 1994.Here we summarize results from a population analysis that included data from long-term demographic studies during 1985–2008. This data was analyzed separately by study area, and also in a meta-analysis across all study areas to assess temporal and spatial patterns in fecundity, apparent survival, recruitment, and annual rates of population change. Estimated…
Publication Type: Report
Synthesis of Knowledge on the Effects of Fire and Fire Surrogates on Wildlife in U.S. Dry Forests
Year: 2009
Dry forests throughout the United States are fire-dependent ecosystems, and much attention has been given to restoring their ecological function. As such, land managers often are tasked with reintroducing fire via prescribed fire, wildland fire use, and fire-surrogate treatments such as thinning and mastication. During planning, managers frequently are expected to anticipate effects of management actions on wildlife species. This document represents a synthesis of existing knowledge on wildlife responses to fire and fire-surrogate treatments, presented in a useful, management-relevant format…
Publication Type: Report
Dry Forests of the Northeastern Cascades Fire and Fire Surrogate Project Site, Mission Creek, Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest
Year: 2009
The Fire and Fire Surrogate (FFS) project is a large long-term metastudy established to assess the effectiveness and ecological impacts of burning and fire “surrogates” such as cuttings and mechanical fuel treatments that are used instead of fire, or in combination with fire, to restore dry forests. One of the 13 national FFS sites is the Northeastern Cascades site at Mission Creek on the Okanogan- Wenatchee National Forest. The study area includes 12 forested stands that encompass a representative range of dry forest conditions in the northeastern Cascade Range. We describe site histories…
Publication Type: Report
FOFEM: The First-Order Fire Effects Model Adapts to the 21st Century
Year: 2009
Technology is playing an increasingly pivotal role in the efficiency and effectiveness of fire management. The First Order Fire Effects Model (FOFEM) is a widely used computer application that predicts the immediate or ‘first-order’ effects of fire: fuel consumption, tree mortality, emissions, and soil heating. FOFEM’s simple operation and comprehensive features have made it a workhorse for fire and resource professionals who need to be able to predict, assess and plan for fire’s effects. Over the last decade FOFEM has undergone several upgrades as developers continue to improve function and…
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.…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Postfire woodpecker foraging in salvage-logged and unlogged forests of the Sierra Nevada
Year: 2008
In forests, high-severity burn patches — wherein most or all of the trees are killed by fire — often occur within a mosaic of low- and moderate-severity effects. Although there have been several studies of postfire salvage-logging effects on bird species, there have been few studies of effects on bird species associated with high-severity patches in forests that have otherwise burned at lower severities. From 2004 to 2006, we investigated the foraging presence or absence of three woodpecker species, the Black-backed (Picoides arcticus), Hairy (P. villosus), and White-headed (P. albolarvatus)…
Publication Type: Journal Article
In a Ponderosa Pine Forest, Prescribed Fires Reduce the Likelihood of Scorched Earth
Year: 2008
The Malheur National Forest is located in the Blue Mountains on Oregon’s eastern side, the portion of the state that lies east of the Cascade Crest. In the mid 1990s, researchers and land managers conceived a suite of experiments to explore the effects of prescribed fire on forest health. The studies were designed to coincide with prescribed burns conducted by the USDA Forest Service. The experiments took place in the Emigrant Creek Ranger District, a remote area dominated by ponderosa pine. One of the research projects aimed to assess soil health after different intervals of fire frequency…
Publication Type: Report
Burned landscapes of southwestern Oregon: what's in it for Northern Spotted Owls?
Year: 2008
Northern spotted owls are known to spend time in areas burned by wildfire, but there has been little scientific investigation of how and why they use these landscapes. A trio of wildfires in southwestern Oregon during the summers of 2001 and 2002 burned through dozens of documented spotted owl territories, providing a rare opportunity to study many important aspects of how these raptors respond to wildfire in dry forest ecosystems. For this project researchers used radio telemetry and demographic surveys to investigate habitat selection, home range size, occupancy, productivity and survival…
Publication Type: Report