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Throughout the 20th century, forest scientists and land managers were guided by principles of succession with regard to aspen forests. The historical model depicted aspen as a "pioneer species" that colonizes a site following disturbance and is…
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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…
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Wildland fire affects both public and private resources throughout the United States. A century of fire suppression has contributed to changing ecological conditions and accumulated fuel loads. Managers have used a variety of approaches to address…
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Policymakers seek ways to encourage fuel reduction among private forest landowners to augment similar efforts on federal and state lands. Motivating landowners to contribute to landscape-level wildfire protection requires an understanding of factors…
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Wildfire and mountain pine beetle infestations are naturally occurring disturbances in western North American forests. Black-backed woodpeckers (Picoides arcticus) are emblematic of the role these disturbances play in creating wildlife habitat,…
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Fuel treatments represent a significant component of the wildfire mitigation strategy in the United States. However, the lack of research aimed at quantifying the explicit effectiveness of fuel treatments in reducing wildfire intensity and spread…
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Prior to fire suppression and exclusion, wildfires and other disturbances (e.g., insects, disease, and weather) sustained ecosystem processes in many landscapes of the Western United States. However, wildfires have been increasing in size, frequency…
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The 1910 fires, which burned more than 1.3 million ha of northern Rocky Mountain forests, provided a mission and management objectives for the newly created Forest Service. By 1911, the Priest River Experimental Station (Forest- PREF) was…
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The scientific basis for restoration of fire-excluded western larch/mixed-conifer forests is not as well developed as that for dry fire-frequent forests. We compared the effects of wildfire and restoration (combined thinning and prescribed fire) in…
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Live fuel moisture content (LFMC), the ratio of water mass to dry mass contained in live plant material, is an important fuel property for determining fire danger and for modeling fire behavior. Remote sensing estimation of LFMC often relies on an…
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Tables have been constructed for use in making quick estimates of canopy base height, canopy fuel load, and canopy bulk density from visual observations or field measurements of stand height, basal area, and stand density for pure stands of…
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Live foliar moisture content (LFMC) significantly influences wildland fire behaviour. However, characterising variations in LFMC is difficult because both foliar mass and dry mass can change throughout the season. Here we quantify the seasonal…
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Reference conditions describe attributes of ecosystem structure, composition, and function and are used to inform ecological restoration efforts. Reference condition information on tree spatial patterns that occurred prior to wide-spread fire…
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Fuels treatments in ponderosa pine - Visits to the Boise National Forest and Boise Basin Exp. Forest
Terrie Jain, Research Forester with the USFS Rocky Mountain Research Station, together with foresters, and fire and wildlife managers from the Boise National Forest led a tour of fuels treatments in dry conifer forests around Idaho City, Idaho. Site…
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Mountain pine beetle (MPB) outbreaks within the previous 10-15 years have affected millions of hectares of lodgepole pine forests in western North America. Concerns about the influence of recent tree mortality on changes in fire behaviour amongst…
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Implementing fuel treatments in every place where it could be beneficial to do so is impractical and not cost effective under any plausible specification of objectives. Only some of the many possible kinds of treatments will be effective in any…
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Short- and medium-term evaluation of how fuel treatments are working is the only way to know if the hundreds of activities on the ground are adding up to the goals of more resilient landscapes and increased safety of people and property. Monitoring…
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Fire has had a profound historical role in shaping dry mixed conifer forests in the western United States. However, the uncertainty and complexity of prescribed fires raises the question "Is fire always the best option for treating fuels?" The…
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Several mechanical approaches to managing vegetation fuels hold promise when applied to the dry mixed conifer forests in the western United States. These are most useful to treat surface, ladder, and crown fuels. There are a variety of techniques to…
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Mick Harrington and Steve Arno, retired research foresters with the USFS Rocky Mountain Research Station, took participants of the May 2014 Large Wildland Fires Conference through a 300-year-old stand of ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa) and western…
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