In the Pacific Northwest, fires are a natural part of the changing landscape. As homeowners continue to build in the wildland-urban interface, they must take special precautions to protect their lives, homes, and property.One way to do this is to create a defensible space around your home.
The USGS Wildland Fire Science Strategic Plan (hereafter, Strategic Plan) was developed by USGS fire scientists and executive leadership, and was informed by discussions with external stakeholders.
In 2019, Colorado State University entered into achallenge cost-share agreement with USFS Stateand Private Forestry to conduct independent researchon the implementation and developmentof Shared Stewardship efforts.
There are many parts of a wildfire and wildland firefighters use specific terminology to describe each part. Fire Facts: What are? Parts of a Wildfire
There are three basic types of forest fires: ground, surface, and crown. Fire Facts: What are? Types of Fire
Wildfire smoke is typically a mixture of water vapor, gases, fine particles, and trace minerals from burning fuels like trees and vegetation, other organic components, and, sometimes, building materials. Fire Facts: What is? Wildfire Smoke
The overall objective of this paper is to clarify areas of debate, clearly define and contrast disparate approaches, and synthesize findings that may help address vulnerability to wildfires and other natural hazards.
In this study, researchers examined print media coverage, data of burned homes, and demographic data of towns impacted by two major wildfires in Washington State. The Carlton Complex burned over 250,000 acres and hundreds of homes in the Methow Valley in 2014, becoming the largest wildfire in Washington’s history. In 2015, the fires that made up the Okanogan Complex burned over 300,000 acres in the same part of northcentral Washington, destroying hundreds more structures and resulting in three firefighter fatalities. Researchers investigated the topics that were prominent and that were ignored in the media coverage of these two wildfires. In particular, they examined media coverage related to wildfire risk and firefighter safety, and compared the locations focused on in the media coverage of the fires in relation to the locations with the greatest damage from the fires.
In this study, the authors characterized historical fire return intervals, seasonality, and relationships with local and regional factors for 13 sites representative of southwestern Oregon dry forests on ridges and midslopes in the Rogue Basin of the Klamath Ecoregion. They used dendrochronology (cross-dated fire-scars from trees) to develop fire histories. Then using a systematic literature review, the authors were able to link local fire histories to a regional dataset and evaluate the data relative to more intensively studied conifer/hardwood forest types in California.