Research Database
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Is burn severity related to fire intensity? Observations from landscape scale remote sensing
Year: 2013
Biomass burning by wildland fires has significant ecological, social and economic impacts. Satellite remote sensing provides direct measurements of radiative energy released by the fire (i.e. fire intensity) and surrogate measures of ecological change due to the fire (i.e. fire or burn severity). Despite anecdotal observations causally linking fire intensity with severity, the nature of any relationship has not been examined over extended spatial scales. We compare fire intensities defined by Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer Fire Radiative Power (MODIS FRP) products with Landsat-…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Pre-wildfire fuel reduction treatments result in more resilient forest structure a decade after wildfire
Year: 2013
Increasing size and severity of wildfires have led to an interest in the effectiveness of forest fuels treatments on reducing fire severity and post-wildfire fuels. Our objective was to contrast stand structure and surface fuel loadings on treated and untreated sites within the 2002 Rodeo–Chediski Fire area. Data from 140 plots on seven paired treated–untreated sites indicated that pre-wildfire treatments reduced fire severity compared with untreated sites. In 2011, coarse woody debris loading (woody material >7.62 cm in diameter) was 257% higher and fine woody debris (woody material <7…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Latent resilience in ponderosa pine forest: effects of resumed frequent fire
Year: 2013
Ecological systems often exhibit resilient states that are maintained through negative feedbacks. In ponderosa pine forests, fire historically represented the negative feedback mechanism that maintained ecosystem resilience; fire exclusion reduced that resilience, predisposing the transition to an alternative ecosystem state upon reintroduction of fire. We evaluated the effects of reintroduced frequent wildfire in unlogged, fire-excluded, ponderosa pine forest in the Bob Marshall Wilderness, Montana, USA. Initial reintroduction of fire in 2003 reduced tree density and consumed surface fuels,…
Publication Type: Journal Article