Research Database
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Innovation to support wildfire risk-based decision-making: examining the incident strategic alignment process
Year: 2025
BackgroundIn the face of increased complexity, the USDA Forest Service (Forest Service) is emphasizing the use of risk-based spatial analytics and expert coaching of fire managers through consistent processes and practices to inform safer, effective, and strategic decision-making during incident management. The Incident Strategic Alignment Process (ISAP) integrates collaborative dialogue with risk management assistance (RMA) and other spatial analytics to develop and deploy a consistent, science-based strategic planning model for incident management. An important challenge is…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Insights into how Community Wildfire Protection Plans act as drivers of wildfire preparedness
Year: 2025
Wildfire poses an increasing threat to communities in the Western US, driven by climate change and rising human settlement in the wildland-urban interface (WUI). It is imperative that communities in fire-prone areas become “fire-adapted” to safely manage their risk. Community Wildfire Protection Plans (CWPPs) constitute an approach by the federal government to enable communities to collaboratively plan for, and adapt to, wildfire. How well these plans have enabled at-risk rural Colorado communities to become “fire-adapted” since their development is still debated. Through interviews with key…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Planted seedling regeneration using gap-based silviculture without herbicide in a wildfire-impacted forest of the Sierra Nevada
Year: 2025
Gap-based silviculture, which we define as the creation and maintenance of multi-aged stands through the periodic harvesting of discrete canopy gaps, provides a potential mechanism for converting previously high-graded stands into more heterogeneous, multi-aged structures. An advantage of small canopy gaps, relative to even-aged regeneration methods, is their potential to suppress shrub competition while allowing seedling growth without the use of herbicides or other means of managing shrub competition. While this idea has been proposed in principle, it has not been tested. The objective of…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Long-term soil nutrient and understory plant responses to post-fire rehabilitation in a lodgepole pine forest
Year: 2025
Wildfires and other disturbances play a fundamental role in regenerating lodgepole pine forests. Though severe, stand-replacing fires are typical of this ecosystem, they can have dramatic impacts on soil properties and biogeochemical processes that influence the rate and composition of vegetation recovery. Organic soil amendments are often applied to manage post-fire erosion, but they can also improve soil moisture and nutrient retention and potentially alter the trajectory of post-fire revegetation. We compared change in soil nutrients, microbial communities, and understory plant cover and…
Publication Type: Journal Article