Research Database
Displaying 81 - 100 of 131
A bird’s-eye view: Land-use planning and assessments in Oregon and Washington
Year: 2015
Developing forest lands and agricultural lands for other uses has wide-ranging implications. Land development can affect production from forest and agricultural lands, wildlife habitat quality, the spread of invasive species, water quality, wildfire control, and infrastructure costs. In its attempts to mitigate these effects, Oregon implemented statewide land-use planning laws in the early 1970s. Washington established less prescriptive laws in the 1990s. Policymakers, land managers, and various interest groups want to know the effect these laws have had on land use. Scientists with the…
Publication Type: Report
Social and economic monitoring for the Lakeview Stewardship Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Project
Year: 2015
The Fremont-Winema National Forest and the Lakeview Stewardship Group were awarded funding under the Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration (CFLR) Program in 2012 for the 662,289 acre Lakeview Stewardship Project. The CFLR Program, administered by the U.S. Forest Service, seeks to increase restoration activities to improve the ecological conditions of forested landscapes while contributing to the social and economic well-being of communities located around national forests.The outcomes from CFLR project activities are monitored both through a standardized reporting framework established…
Publication Type: Report
Understanding gaps between the risk perceptions of wildland-urban interface (WUI) residents and wildfire professionals
Year: 2015
Research across a variety of risk domains finds that the risk perceptions of professionals and the public differ. Such risk perception gaps occur if professionals and the public understand individual risk factors differently or if they aggregate risk factors into overall risk differently. The nature of such divergences, whether based on objective inaccuracies or on differing perspectives, is important to understand. However, evidence of risk perception gaps typically pertains to general, overall risk levels; evidence of and details about mismatches between the specific level of risk faced by…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Community Experiences with Wildfires: Actions, Effectiveness, Impacts, and Trends
Year: 2015
Wildfire has become a growing threat for communities across the American West and a complex concern for agencies tasked with community protection. This task has grown more difficult due to the increasing inci-dence of large fires and the continued expansion of the wildland-urban interface (WUI), the area where human habitations and wildland fuels abut or in-termix. These trends have motivated both federal policies and community-level responses to protect communities, lives, and infrastructure....
Publication Type: Report
Before Wildfire Strikes: A Handbook for Homeowners and Communities in Southwest Oregon
Year: 2015
This is a manual that helps homeowners and neighborhoods prepare their areas and their homes for wildfire. A fire-adapted community is a community located in a fire-prone area that requires little assistance from firefighters during a wildfire. Residents of these communities accept responsibility for living in a high fire-hazard area. They possess the knowledge and skills to prepare their homes and property to survive wildfire; evacuate early, safely and effectively; and survive, if trapped by wildfire.
Publication Type: Report
Negative consequences of positive feedbacks in US wildfire management
Year: 2015
Over the last two decades wildfire activity, damage, and management cost within the US have increased substantially. These increases have been associated with a number of factors including climate change and fuel accumulation due to a century of active fire suppression. The increased fire activity has occurred during a time of significant ex-urban development of the Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) along with increased demand on water resources originating on forested landscapes. These increased demands have put substantial pressure on federal agencies charged with wildfire management to…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Categorizing the social context of the wildland urban interface: Adaptive capacity for wildfire and community "archetypes"
Year: 2015
Understanding the local context that shapes collective response to wildfire risk continues to be a challenge for scientists and policymakers. This study utilizes and expands on a conceptual approach for understanding adaptive capacity to wildfire in a comparison of 18 past case studies. The intent is to determine whether comparison of local social context and community characteristics across cases can identify community "archetypes" that approach wildfire planning and mitigation in consistently different ways. Identification of community archetypes serves as a potential strategy for…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Not All Fires are Wild - Understanding Fire and Its Use as a Management Tool
Year: 2015
Historically, fires have played an integral role in the vitality of our forests. Fire changes the landscape by altering population densities...
Publication Type: Report
The role of defensible space for residential structure protection during wildfires
Year: 2014
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. Although state and local governments publish specific guidelines and requirements, there is little empirical evidence to suggest how much vegetation modification is needed to provide significant benefits. We analysed the role of defensible space by mapping and measuring a suite of variables on modern pre-fire aerial photography for 1000 destroyed and…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Understanding evacuation preferences and wildfire mitigations among Northwest Montana residents
Year: 2014
There is currently insufficient information in the United States about residents’ planned evacuation actions during wildfire events, including any intent to remain at or near home during fire events. This is incompatible with growing evidence that select populations at risk from wildfire are considering alternatives to evacuation. This study explores the evacuation preferences of wildland–urban interface residents in Flathead County, Montana, USA. We compare the performance of wildfire mitigation and fuel reduction actions across groups of residents with different primary evacuation…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Fuel treatment prescriptions alter spatial patterns of fire severity around the wildland-urban interface during the Wallow Fire, Arizona, USA
Year: 2014
Fuel reduction treatments are implemented in the forest surrounding the wildland–urban interface (WUI) to provide defensible space and safe opportunity for the protection of homes during a wildfire. The 2011 Wallow Fire in Arizona USA burned through recently implemented fuel treatments in the wildland surrounding residential communities in the WUI, and those fuel treatments have been credited with providing firefighter opportunities to protect residences during the Wallow Fire and thereby preventing the loss of homes that otherwise would have been burned. To characterize the spatial pattern…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Learning to coexist with wildfire
Year: 2014
The impacts of escalating wildfire in many regions — the lives and homes lost, the expense of suppression and the damage to ecosystem services — necessitate a more sustainable coexistence with wildfire. Climate change and continued development on fire-prone landscapes will only compound current problems. Emerging strategies for managing ecosystems and mitigating risks to human communities provide some hope, although greater recognition of their inherent variation and links is crucial. Without a more integrated framework, fire will never operate as a natural ecosystem process, and the impact…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Wildfire evacuation and its alternatives: perspectives from four United States' communities
Year: 2014
Recent years have seen growing interest within the United States fire management community in exploring alternatives to the standard approach of evacuating entire populations that are threatened by a wildfire. There has been particular interest in what can be learned from the Australian approach, whereby residents choose whether or not to evacuate under the ‘prepare, stay and defend or leave early’ approach, also called Stay or Go. Given these developments, it is useful to understand what elements are taken into consideration by those who would be most affected by a new approach when they…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Stewarding Forests and Communities: Final Report of the Dry Forest Zone Project
Year: 2014
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. However their efforts were often siloed and were not making a big enough impact to offset the vast threat of wildfire and the effects of climate change that are increasingly pressing the region. Nor were these singular efforts being presented to federal lawmakers or agencies that have the need and ability to implement policies to replicate these successes…
Publication Type: Report
Fire behavior in masticated fuels: A review
Year: 2014
Mastication is an increasingly common fuels treatment that redistributes “ladder” fuels to the forest floor to reduce vertical fuel continuity, crown fire potential, and fireline intensity, but fuel models do not exist for predicting fire behavior in these fuel types. Recent fires burning in masticated fuels have behaved in unexpected and contradictory ways, likely because the shredded, compact fuel created when trees and shrubs are masticated contains irregularly shaped pieces in mixtures quite different from other woody fuels. We review fuels characteristics and fire behavior in masticated…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Wildland Urban Interface Wildfire Mitigation Desk Reference Guide
Year: 2014
The effects of wildland fire on communities have become more intense, frequent, and far-reaching. Increased development in the wildland urban interface means higher wildfire risk and more suppression needs, costing billions every year. A comprehensive approach to preparedness and mitigation is an effective way to address increasing suppression costs and reduce risk to communities. The Wildland Urban Interface Wildfire Mitigation Desk Reference Guide is designed to provide basic background information on relevant programs and terminology for those, whether community members or agency personnel…
Publication Type: Government Report
Reality Check: Shedding New Light on the Restoration Needs of Mixed-Conifer Forests
Year: 2014
Until recently, scientific understanding of the history and ecology of the Pacific Northwest’s mixed-conifer forests east of the Cascade Range was minimal. As a result, forest managers have had limited ability to restore the health of publicly owned forests that show signs of acute stress caused by insects, disease, grazing, logging, and wildfire. A recent study co-authored by a Pacific Northwest Research Station research forester revealed that the traditionally used term “mixed-conifer forest” is too broad for ecological management. The study fills a knowledge gap by providing evidence about…
Publication Type: Report
Hydrologic and erosion responses to wildfire along the rangeland-xeric forest continuum in the western US: a review and model of hydrologic vulnerability
Year: 2014
The recent increase in wildfire activity across the rangeland–xeric forest continuum in the western United States has landscape-scale consequences in terms of runoff and erosion. Concomitant cheatgrass (Bromus tectorum L.) invasions, plant community transitions and a warming climate in recent decades along grassland–shrubland–woodland–xeric forest transitions have promoted frequent and large wildfires, and continuance of the trend appears likely if warming climate conditions prevail. These changes potentially increase overall hydrologic vulnerability by spatially and temporally increasing…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Assessing the quality of forest fuel loading data collected using public participation methods and smartphones
Year: 2014
Effective wildfire management in the wildland–urban interface (WUI) depends on timely data on forest fuel loading to inform management decisions. Mobile personal communication devices, such as smartphones, present new opportunities to collect data in the WUI, using sensors within the device – such as the camera, global positioning system (GPS), accelerometer, compass, data storage and networked data transfer. In addition to providing a tool for forest professionals, smartphones can also facilitate engaging other members of the community in forest management as they are now available to a…
Publication Type: Journal Article
How risk management can prevent future wildfire disasters in the wildland-urban interface
Year: 2014
Recent fire seasons in the western United States are some of the most damaging and costly on record. Wildfires in the wildland-urban interface on the Colorado Front Range, resulting in thousands of homes burned and civilian fatalities, although devastating, are not without historical reference. These fires are consistent with the characteristics of large, damaging, interface fires that threaten communities across much of the western United States. Wildfires are inevitable, but the destruction of homes, ecosystems, and lives is not. We propose the principles of risk analysis to provide land…
Publication Type: Report