Fuels and Fuel Treatments

Fuel treatments have been widely used as a tool to reduce catastrophic wildland fire risks in many forests around the world. However, it is a challenging task for forest managers to prioritise where, when and how to implement fuel treatments across a large forest landscape. In this study, an optimisation model was developed for long-term fuel management decisions at a landscape scale.

Stand-level spatial pattern influences key aspects of resilience and ecosystem function such as disturbance behavior, regeneration, snow retention, and habitat quality in frequent-fire pine and mixed-conifer forests.

This guide describes the benefits, opportunities, and trade-offs concerning fuel treatments in the dry mixed conifer forests of northern California and the Klamath Mountains, Pacific Northwest Interior, northern and central Rocky Mountains, and Utah.

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.

Principal findings of the National Fire and Fire Surrogate (FFS) study are presented in an annotated bibliography and summarized in tabular form by site, discipline (ecosystem component), treatment type, and major theme.

Prescribed burning for fuel reduction is a major strategy for reducing the risk from unplanned fire. Although there are theoretical studies suggesting that prescribed fire has a strong negative influence on the subsequent area of unplanned fire (so-called leverage), many empirical studies find a more modest influence.

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 study evaluates the consumption of coarse woody debris in various states of decay. Samples from a northern Idaho mixed-conifer forest were classified using three different classification methods, ignited with two different ignition methods and consumption was recorded.

Reducing stand density is often used as a tool for mitigating the risk of high-intensity crown fires. However, concern has been expressed that opening stands might lead to greater drying of surface fuels, contributing to increased fire risk. The objective of this study was to determine whether woody fuel moisture differed between unthinned and thinned mixed-conifer stands.

Mechanical mastication is increasingly used as a wildland fuel treatment, reducing standing trees and shrubs to compacted fuelbeds of fractured woody fuels. One major shortcoming in our understanding of these fuelbeds is how particle fracturing influences moisture gain or loss, a primary determinant of fire behaviour.