Research Database
Displaying 81 - 100 of 115
Towards improving wildland firefighter situational awareness through daily fire behaviour risk assessments in the US Northern Rockies and Northern Great Basin
Year: 2017
Wildland firefighters must assess potential fire behaviour in order to develop appropriate strategies and tactics that will safely meet objectives. Fire danger indices integrate surface weather conditions to quantify potential variations in fire spread rates and intensities and therefore should closely relate to observed fire behaviour. These indices could better inform fire management decisions if they were linked directly to observed fire behaviour. Here, we present a simple framework for relating fire danger indices to observed categorical wildland fire behaviour. Ordinal logistic…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Wildfire risk associated with different vegetation types within and outside wildland-urban interfaces
Year: 2016
Wildland-urban interfaces (WUIs) are areas where urban settlements and wildland vegetation intermingle, making the interaction between human activities and wildlife especially intense. Their relevance is increasing worldwide as they are expanding and are associated with fire risk. The WUI may affect the fire risk associated with the type of vegetation (land cover/land use; LULC), a well-known risk factor, due to differences in the type and intensity of human activities in different LULCs within and outside WUIs. No previous studies analyse this interaction between the effects of the WUI and…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Facilitating knowledge transfer between researchers and wildfire practitioners about trust: An international case study
Year: 2016
The importance of knowledge transfer between researchers, policy makers and practitioners is widely recognized. However, barriers to knowledge transfer can make it difficult for practitioners to apply the results of scientific research. This paper describes a project that addressed barriers to knowledge transfer by involving wildfire management practitioners from three countries in developing a trust planning guide. The guide provides information about trust, factors that influence trust and actions that can be taken to build trust in the context of wildfire management. The researchers…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Riparian fuel treatments in the western USA: Challenges and considerations
Year: 2016
Fuel reduction treatments are being conducted throughout watersheds of the western United States to reduce hazardous fuels in efforts to decrease the risk of high-severity fire. The number of fuel reduction projects that include near-stream environments is increasing, bringing new challenges to riparian management. Riparian areas are protected by administrative regulations, some of which are largely custodial and restrict active management. However, riparian areas have also been affected by fire suppression, land use, and human disturbance, so manipulative treatments of vegetation and other…
Publication Type: Report
Wildfire may increase habitat quality for spring Chinook salmon in the Wenatchee river subbasin, WA, USA
Year: 2016
Pacific Northwest salmonids are adapted to natural disturbance regimes that create dynamic habitat patterns over space and through time. However, human land use, particularly long-term fire suppression, has altered the intensity and frequency of wildfire in forested upland and riparian areas. To examine the potential impacts of wildfire on aquatic systems, we developed stream-reach-scale models of freshwater habitat for three life stages (adult, egg/fry, and juvenile) of spring Chinook salmon (Oncorhynchus tshawytscha) in the Wenatchee River subbasin, Washington. We used variables…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Post-fire response of riparian vegetation in a heavily browsed environment
Year: 2015
Severe wildfires infrequently occur in large heterogeneous riparian valleys. Riparian areas may affect fire behavior and the pattern of burning due to saturated soils and patchy fuels that may have high moisture content in live and dead stems. We examined the effects of a severe fire on the dominant riparian vegetation: thin-leaf alder, river birch and willow, in a broad riparian valley in Rocky Mountain National Park, CO, USA. We mapped the canopy stem mortality and basal resprouting of 4507 first year post fire and 643 second year post fire individuals that had been the dominant woody…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Pile Burning Effects on Soil Water Repellency, Infiltration, and Downslope Water Chemistry in the Lake Tahoe Basin, USA
Year: 2015
Thinning of conifers followed by pile burning has become a popular treatment to reduce fuel loads in the Lake Tahoe Basin, USA. However, concern has been voiced about burning within or near riparian areas because of the potential effect on nutrient release and, ultimately, lake water quality. Our objective was to quantify the effects of pile burning on soil physical and chemical properties and resulting near-stream surface and subsurface water chemistry. Twenty-seven hand-built piles of three contrasting fuelbed types (large wood, mixed-diameter slash, small-diameter slash) were burned. Burn…
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
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
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
Sources and implications of bias and uncertainty in a century of US wildfire activity data
Year: 2015
Analyses to identify and relate trends in wildfire activity to factors such as climate, population, land use or land cover and wildland fire policy are increasingly popular in the United States. There is a wealth of US wildfire activity data available for such analyses, but users must be aware of inherent reporting biases, inconsistencies and uncertainty in the data in order to maximise the integrity and utility of their work. Data for analysis are generally acquired from archival summary reports of the federal or interagency fire organisations; incident-level wildfire reporting systems of…
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
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
Making a World of Difference in Fire and Climate Change
Year: 2014
Together with other stressors, interactions between fire and climate change are expressing their potential to drive ecosystem shifts and losses in biodiversity. Closely linked to human well-being in most regions of the globe, fires and their consequences should no longer be regarded as repeated surprise events. Instead, we should regard fires as common and enduring components of most terrestrial systems, including their social context. At the global scale, too much fire and the wrong kinds of fire are trumping not enough fire as the most influential fire problems we must address. Intensified…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Effects of burn status and conditioning on colonization of wood by stream macroinvertebrates
Year: 2014
The combination of changing climate and anthropogenic activities is increasing the probability of wildfire around the world. When fires occur in riparian zones, associated tree mortality can add wood directly to streams or wood may fall to the forest floor and remain there for some time before being transported into stream channels. Wood provides critical structure for aquatic macroinvertebrates, so our objectives were to assess the effects of wood burn status, conditioning, and their interaction on macroinvertebrate community composition, taxon and functional diversity, and trait affinities…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Smoke management of wildfire and prescribed fire: understanding public preferences and trade-offs
Year: 2014
Smoke from forest fires is a serious and increasing land management concern. However, a paucity of information exists that is specific to public perceptions of smoke. This study used conjoint analysis, a multivariate technique, to evaluate how four situational factors (i.e., smoke origin, smoke duration, health impact, and advanced warning) influence public tolerance of smoke in the northern Rocky Mountains and south-central United States. Separate analyses were performed for subgroups, based on community type, level of fire preparedness, demographics, and smoke experience, to explore…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Social Science at the WUI: A Compendium of Research Results to Create Fire-Adapted Communities
Year: 2013
Over the past decade, a growing body of research has been conducted on the human dimensions of wildland fire. Building on a relatively small number of foundational studies, this research now addresses a wide range of topics including mitigation activities on private lands, fuels reduction treatments on public land, community impacts and resident behaviors during fire, acceptance of approaches to postfire restoration and recovery, and fire management policy and decision making. As this research has matured, there has been a recognition of the need to examine the full body of resulting…
Publication Type: Report
Building community-agency trust in fire affected communities in Australia and the United States
Year: 2013
As a result of the increasing environmental and social costs of wildfire, fire management agencies face ever-growing complexity in their management decisions and interactions with the public. The success of these interactions with community members may be facilitated through building community–agency trust in the process of providing public input opportunities and community engagement and education activities. Without trust, the public may become frustrated in their interactions with the agency and withhold support for management decisions. This study takes a comparative case approach using…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Changes in development near public forest lands in Oregon and Washington, 1974-2005: Implications for management
Year: 2013
Development owing to population increases over the last 30 years has greatly affected forested lands in the United States. To assess and compare increases in development, we counted changes in the number of structures on a systematic grid of photointerpreted points around public forest land in Washington and Oregon. Areas bordering public forest land are showing substantial increases in development, with the number of structures on private lands near almost all types of public forest more than doubling between the 1970s and 2000s. Lands bordering Washington’s Department of Natural Resources…
Publication Type: Report
Wildfire, Wildlands, and People: Understanding and preparing for wildfire in the wildland-urban interface
Year: 2013
Fire has historically played a fundamental ecological role in many of America’s wildland areas. However, the rising number of homes in the wildland-urban interface (WUI), associated impacts on lives and property from wildfire, and escalating costs of wildfire management have led to an urgent need for communities to become "fire-adapted." We present maps of the conterminous United States that illustrate historical natural fire regimes, the wildland-urban interface, and the number and location of structures burned since 1999. We outline a sampler of actions, programs, and community planning and…
Publication Type: Report