A key problem reported by the fuels treatment planning community is the difficulty and inefficiency of evaluating and then applying many planning tools and applications.
Describing the 2013 summer fire season, the Oregon Department of Forestry called it “epic.” On those lands protected by the state, it was the costliest ever, and the first time in over 60 years that more than 100,000 acres burned. Oregon’s forests are changing. The management objectives and priorities of federal and private landowners are evolving.
California’s chaparral plant community composition can change when fire is followed by intense drought. By measuring postfire population demography coupled with physiological measurements during a severe drought, Pratt et al.
During the past two decades, land managers and community leaders in the West have adopted sustainable land management methods to make forests healthier, and to maintain profitable local businesses that are beneficial to their communities.
Together with other stressors, interactions between fire and climate change are expressing their potential to drive ecosystem shifts and losses in biodiversity. Closely linked to human well-being in most regions of the globe, fires and their consequences should no longer be regarded as repeated surprise events.
To better understand NIPF owners, and subsequently the types of policies that are most likely to engage them in fuel mitigation strategies, researchers at the USFS Pacific Northwest Research Station and Oregon State University surveyed and interviewed private forest landowners living in fire-prone forests in eastern and central Oregon. Over 500 survey responses and 60 one-on-one interviews with NIPF owners helped the research team better understand different types of landowners, their distinct motivations, and policy suitabilities for hazardous fuels reduction.
The Ashland Forest Resiliency Stewardship Project has released “Fire for Water,” a 10-minute video (produced by Jon Schwedler, Darren Borgias and Chris Chambers) on the treatment work being done to protect the city of Ashland’s watershed. Some of the work in this multi-partner collaborative project is being supported by SPER funding, and the NW FLN is one of the co-sponsors of the video.
This sourcebook provides answers from the field— strategies and tools that some collaborative resource management groups have used to systematically evaluate their work and adapt plans and management actions based on what they have learned.
The Columbia Basin Natural Wildlife Refuge (CNWR) had been periodically grazed until the Refuge was established in 1944. Cheatgrass became a prominent plant in the area. In 1986 a fire occurred near the study area. The area was reseeded with Elymus wawawaiensis (Snake River Wheatgrass, Secar cultivar). This grass has established reducing cheatgrass cover to very low levels.
Forty-four percent (44%) of voters see uncontrollable wildfires as a serious problem. Equal numbers of voters say wildfires in the country are worse than they were five years ago as say they are about the same. On a personal level, a majority of voters are either more worried about wildfires affecting their own personal safety than they were five years ago, or worried the same amount.