Research Database
Displaying 81 - 100 of 135
Drivers of Wildfire Suppression Costs: A Review
Year: 2016
As federal spending on wildland fire suppression has increased dramatically in recent decades, significant policymaking has been designed, at least in part, to address and temper rising costs. Effective strategies for controlling public spending and leveraging limited wildfire management resources depend on a comprehensive understanding of the drivers of suppression costs. Problematically, frequently noted drivers often do not explain variability between similar wildfires or comparable wildfire seasons. As speculation and scrutiny around rising costs have increased, so too have scholarly…
Publication Type: Report
Patterns of conifer regeneration following high severity wildfire in ponderosa pine - dominated forests of the Colorado Front Range
Year: 2016
Many recent wildfires in ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa Lawson & C. Lawson) - dominated forests of the western United States have burned more severely than historical ones, generating concern about forest resilience. This concern stems from uncertainty about the ability of ponderosa pine and other co-occurring conifers to regenerate in areas where no surviving trees remain. We collected post-fire conifer regeneration and other data within and surrounding five 11-18 year-old Colorado Front Range wildfires to examine whether high severity burn areas (i.e., areas without surviving trees)…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Opportunities to utilize traditional phenological knowledge to support adaptive management of social-ecological systems vulnerable to changes in climate and fire regimes
Year: 2016
The field of adaptive management has been embraced by researchers and managers in the United States as an approach to improve natural resource stewardship in the face of uncertainty and complex environmental problems. Integrating multiple knowledge sources and feedback mechanisms is an important step in this approach. Our objective is to contribute to the limited literature that describes the benefits of better integrating indigenous knowledge (IK) with other sources of knowledge in making adaptive-management decisions. Specifically, we advocate the integration of traditional phenological…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Secretarial Order 3336 Science Priorities: The Role of Science Past, Present, and Future
Year: 2016
Within sagebrush (Artemisia spp.) ecosystems, which are home to more than 350 species of plants and animals, potentially more frequent and severe fires are causing an increased threat to human safety, property, rural economies, and wildlife habitat. In particular, the habitat of the greater sage-grouse (Centrocercus urophasianus), an iconic sagebrush-dependent species, is at risk. In response to this reality, on January 15, 2015, Secretary Sally Jewell signed Secretarial Order 3336 (S.O. 3336), titled “Rangeland Fire Prevention, Management, and Restoration.” The main purpose of the order is…
Publication Type: Report
Employing resilience in the United States Forest Service
Year: 2016
The concept of resilience has permeated the discourse of many land use and environmental agencies in an attempt to articulate how to develop and implement policies concerned with the social and ecological dimensions of natural disturbances. Several distinct definitions of resilience exist, each with its own concepts, focus and contexts related to land use policy and management. This often makes understanding the inherent objectives of policies and related principles challenging. The United States Forest Service (USFS) is one example where ambiguity and uncertainty surrounding the use of…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Toward a more ecologically informed view of severe forest fires
Year: 2016
We use the historical presence of high-severity fire patches in mixed-conifer forests of the western United States to make several points that we hope will encourage development of a more ecologically informed view of severe wildland fire effects. First, many plant and animal species use, and have sometimes evolved to depend on, severely burned forest conditions for their persistence. Second, evidence from fire history studies also suggests that a complex mosaic of severely burned conifer patches was common historically in the West. Third, to maintain ecological integrity in forests born of…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Tamm Review: Management of mixed-severity fire regime forests in Oregon, Washington, and Northern California
Year: 2016
Increasingly, objectives for forests with moderate- or mixed-severity fire regimes are to restore successionally diverse landscapes that are resistant and resilient to current and future stressors. Maintaining native species and characteristic processes requires this successional diversity, but methods to achieve it are poorly explained in the literature. In the Inland Pacific US, large, old, early seral trees were a key historical feature of many young and old forest successional patches, especially where fires frequently occurred. Large, old trees are naturally fire-tolerant, but today are…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Enhancing adaptive capacity for restoring fire-dependent ecosystems: the Fire Learning Network’s Prescribed Fire Training Exchanges
Year: 2015
Prescribed fire is a critical tool for promoting restoration and increasing resilience in fire-adapted ecosystems, but there are barriers to its use, including a shortage of personnel with adequate ecological knowledge and operational expertise to implement prescribed fire across multijurisdictional landscapes. In the United States, recognized needs for both professional development and increased use of fire are not being met, often because of institutional limitations. The Fire Learning Network has been characterized as a multiscalar, collaborative network that works to enhance the adaptive…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Fire, Fuels, and Streams: The Effects and Effectiveness of Riparian Treatments
Year: 2015
Fire is an important disturbance in riparian systems—consuming vegetation; increasing light;creating snags and debris flows; altering habitat structure; and affecting stream conditions, erosion, andhydrology. For many years, land managers have worked to keep fire out of riparian systems through theuse of buffers. A number of projects funded by the Joint Fire Science Program are shedding light onthe dynamics of fire in riparian systems. Recent research and field practice have shown that (1) ripariantreatments can be beneficial and are not as risky as previously thought; and (2) riparian…
Publication Type: Report
Local Ecological Knowledge and Fire Management: What Does the Public Understand?
Year: 2015
As fire management agencies seek to implement more flexible fire management strategies, local understanding and support for these strategies become increasingly important. One issue associated with implementing more flexible fire management strategies is educating local populations about fire management and identifying what local populations know or do not know related to fire management. This study used survey data from three 2010 wildland fires to understand how ecological knowledge and education level affected fire management perception and understanding. Results indicated that increased…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Fuel and vegetation trends after wildfire in treated versus untreated forests
Year: 2015
Increasing size and severity of wildfires have led to increased interest in managing forests for resiliency to future disturbances. Comparing and contrasting treated versus untreated stands through multiple growing seasons postfire provide an opportunity to understand processes driving responses and can guide management decisions regarding resiliency. In treated and untreated forests, we compared fire effects 2‐10 growing seasons following fire on 3 different fires in New Mexico and Arizona. We estimated understory cover, standing crop, fuel loading, and basal area in (1) lop, pile, burn; (2…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Wildland fire management: insights from a foresight panel
Year: 2015
Wildland fire management faces unprecedented challenges in the 21st century: the increasingly apparent effects of climate change, more people and structures in the wildland-urban interface, growing costs associated with wildfire management, and the rise of high-impact fires, to name a few. Given these significant and growing challenges, conventional fire management approaches are unlikely to be effective in the future. Innovative and forward-looking approaches are needed. This study explored wildland fire management futures by using methods and diverse perspectives from futures research. To…
Publication Type: Report
Re-envisioning community-wildfire relations in the U.S. West as adaptive governance
Year: 2015
Prompted by a series of increasingly destructive, expensive, and highly visible wildfire crises in human communities across the globe, a robust body of scholarship has emerged to theorize, conceptualize, and measure community-level resilience to wildfires. To date, however, insufficient consideration has been given to wildfire resilience as a process of adaptive governance mediated by institutions at multiple scales. Here we explore the possibilities for addressing this gap through an analysis of wildfire resilience among wildland-urban interface communities in the western region of the…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Fire and fuels
Year: 2014
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. Although there are many important lessons to learn from the past, we may not be able to rely completely on past forest conditions to provide us with blueprints for current and future forest management. Rather than attempting to achieve a particular forest…
Publication Type: Report
Traditional Ecological Knowledge: A Model for Modern Fire Management?
Year: 2014
For many thousands of years, aboriginal peoples worldwide used fire to manage landscapes. In NorthAmerica, the frequency and extent of fire (both human caused and natural) were much reduced afterEuropean colonization. Fire exclusion became the policy in the United States for most of the 20thcentury as the country became more settled and industrialized. Past fire exclusion has helped producelandscapes that are highly susceptible to uncharacteristically severe wildfire. An urgent challengefor land managers today is to reduce fire risk through several means, including prescribed burning,without…
Publication Type: Report
The Ecology and Management of Moist Mixed-Conifer Forests in Eastern Oregon and Washington: a Synthesis of the Relevant Biophysical Science and Implications for Future Land Management
Year: 2014
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. This synthesis responds to this need. We present a compilation of existing research across multiple natural resource issues, including disturbance regimes, the legacy effects of past management actions,…
Publication Type: Report
Recent mountain pine beetle outbreaks, wildfire severity, and postfire tree regeneration in the US Northern Rockies
Year: 2014
Widespread tree mortality caused by outbreaks of native bark beetles (Circulionidae: Scolytinae) in recent decades has raised concern among scientists and forest managers about whether beetle outbreaks fuel more ecologically severe forest fires and impair postfire resilience. To investigate this question, we collected extensive field data following multiple fires that burned subalpine forests in 2011 throughout the Northern Rocky Mountains across a spectrum of prefire beetle outbreak severity, primarily from mountain pine beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae). We found that recent (2001–2010)…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Building trust, establishing credibility, and communicating fire issues with the public
Year: 2014
With more people than ever living in the vicinity of the wildland-urban interface, communicating wildland fire management activities and building trust with the public is paramount for safety. Although the time and resources it takes to build and maintain the public’s trust may seem daunting, it may be one of the most important factors determining the long-term viability of a fire management program. Trust is built over time through personal relationships with citizens and communities and also by demonstrating competence and establishing credibility. When trust and confidence have been…
Publication Type: Report
Trust: A planning guide for wildfire agencies & practitioners
Year: 2014
This planning guide is the outcome of an international collaboration of researchers and practitioners/field managers working in communities at risk of wildfire in three countries. Initially, the team of social scientists from Australia, Canada, and the United States utilized the collective research literature to examine factors that influence stakeholder trust. A working draft of this document was shared with experienced agency personnel and community leaders previous to interactive workshops and field visits in each country. This allowed for deliberations of the essential features of…
Publication Type: Report
Graduate Research Innovation Awards Encourage Young Scientists to Ask Bold Questions
Year: 2014
The Joint Fire Science Program (JFSP), in partnership with the Association for Fire Ecology,offers Graduate Research Innovation (GRIN) awards yearly to a handful of top-quality graduatestudents conducting research in fire science. GRIN awards are intended to nurture the next generationof fire and fuels scientists and managers, enhance their professional development,help them become engaged with their community of peers, and equip them to tacklethe fire and fuels management challenges of today and tomorrow.
Publication Type: Report