Restoration and Hazardous Fuel Reduction

Throughout North America, rapid exurban development is increasing the spatial extent and population density of the wildland urban interface (WUI), exacerbating problems of wildfire risk and biodiversity loss. To address these issues, policy and planning tools need to be targeted toward different types of WUI landowners in the different types of landscape locations they occupy.

Mixed conifer forests of western North America are challenging for fire management, as historical fire regimes were highly variable in severity, timing, and spatial extent.

The ecological consequences of slash pile burning are a concern for land managers charged with maintaining forest soil productivity and native plant diversity. Fuel reduction and forest health management projects have created nearly 150,000 slash piles scheduled for burning on US Forest Service land in northern Colorado. The vast majority of these are small piles (<5 m diameter).

Ecological restoration often attempts to promote native species while managing for disturbances such as fire and non-native invasions. The goal of this research was to investigate whether restoration of a non-native, invasive Megathyrsus maximus (guinea grass) tropical grassland could simultaneously promote native species and reduce fire potential.

The implementation of US federal forest restoration programs on national forests is a complex process that requires balancing diverse socioecological goals with project economics.

More than a century of forest and fire management of Inland Pacific landscapes has transformed their successional and disturbance dynamics.

With the potential for worsening fire conditions, discussion is escalating over how to best reduce effects on urban communities. A widely supported strategy is the creation of defensible space immediately surrounding homes and other structures.

Recent studies of historical fire regimes indicate that fires occurring prior to Euro-American settlement were characterized by a high degree of spatial complexity that was driven by heterogeneity in vegetation/fuels and topography and influenced by variability in climate, which mediated the timing, effects, and extents of fires over time.

Ecological restoration is a practice that seeks to heal degraded ecosystems by reestablishing native species, structural characteristics, and ecological processes.

Land managers in the Pacific Northwest have reported a need for updated scientific information on the ecology and management of mixed-conifer forests east of the Cascade Range in Oregon and Washington. Of particular concern are the moist mixed-conifer forests, which have become drought-stressed and vulnerable to high-severity fire after decades of human disturbances and climate warming.