The Tenderfoot Creek Experimental Forest (TCEF), established in 1961, is dominated by lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta var. latifolia) forest types. The most common habitat type found on the Experimental Forest is subalpine fir/grouse whortleberry (Abies lasiocarpa/Vaccinium scoparium). The subalpine forests of the TCEF are mixed-age stands that reflect the area's fire history.

Elevation of the TCEF ranges from about 6,000 to 8,000 feet, and freezing temperatures are possible in any month of the year.  

Research and Resources -

Fire Effects - Plants: 
Stem mortality in surface fires. Part II: experimental methods for characterizing the thermal response of tree stems to heating by fires

Fire Effects - Water: 
Historic role of fire in determining annual water yield from Tenderfoot Creek Experimental Forest, Montana 

Fire Effects - Wildlife: 
Modeling effects of prescribed fire on wildlife habitat: stand structure, snag recruitment, and coarse woody debris 

Using bark char codes to predict post-fire cambium mortality

Fire History: 
Fire history of Tenderfoot Creek Experimental Forest Lewis and Clark National Forest

Fuel Treatments & Prescriptions: 

Forest fuels and potential fire behaviour 12 years after variable-retention harvest in lodgepole pine

Management guide to ecosystem restoration treatments: two-aged lodgepole pine forests of central Montana, USA

The use of silviculture and prescribed fire to manage stand structure and fuel profiles in a multi-aged lodgepole pine forest

Research on stand management options for reducing fuels and restoring two-aged lodgepole pine communities on the Tenderfoot Creek Experimental Forest 

Fuels Assessments & Monitoring: 
Analysis of algorithms for predicting canopy fuel

Assessment of the line transect method: an examination of the spatial patterns of down and standing dead wood

Biophysical controls on surface fuel litterfall and decomposition in the Northern Rocky Mountains, USA

Estimating canopy fuel characteristics in five conifer stands in the western United States using tree and stand measurements

Estimating forest canopy bulk density using six indirect methods

Methods for the quantification of coarse woody debris and an examination of its spatial patterning: a study from the Tenderfoot Creek Experimental Forest, MT

Stereo photo guide for estimating canopy fuel characteristics in conifer stands

Surface fuel litterfall and decomposition in the Northern Rocky Mountains, U.S.A.

Using airborne laser altimetry to determine fuel models for estimating fire behavior

Invasive species: 
Roads impact the distribution of noxious weeds more than restoration treatments in a lodgepole pine forest in Montana, U.S.A.

Restoration: 
Restoring historic landscape patterns through management: restoring fire mosaics on the landscape

Restoring fire in lodgepole pine forests of the Intermountain West