Fuels & Fuel Treatments

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Overview and Verification of LANDFIRE Fuels: 2022 Cooks Peak Fire

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A practitioner-oriented overview of LANDFIRE with a focus on fuels and how they react to modeling techniques. The subject area of discussion will be the 2022 Cooks Peak fire located in northern New Mexico. This webinar will be technical in its application and may offer insights for both beginner and advanced LANDFIRE users.

Presenters: Tobin Smail, LANDFIRE Next Gen Fuels Lead, USFS Rocky Mountain Research Station Fire Modeling Institute; and Charley Martin, LANDFIRE Fuels, TSSC Contract USGS/KBR

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Climate change is narrowing and shifting prescribed fire windows in western US

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Here, we quantify observed and projected trends in the frequency and seasonality of western United States prescribed fire days. We find that while ~2 C of global warming by 2060 will reduce such days overall (−17%), particularly during spring (−25%) and summer (−31%), winter (+4%) may increasingly emerge as a comparatively favorable window for prescribed fire especially in northern states.

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Spot-fire distance increases for wildfires compared to Rx fires as grasslands transition to juniper woodlands

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This study found prescribed fire used to control woody encroachment had lower maximum spot-fire distances compared to wildfires and, correspondingly, a lower amount of land area at risk to spot-fire occurrence. Under more extreme wildfire scenarios, spot-fire distances were 2 times higher in grasslands, and over 3 times higher in encroached grasslands and Juniperus woodlands compared to fires burned under prescribed fire conditions. Maximum spot-fire distance was 450% greater in Juniperus woodlands compared to grasslands and exposed an additional 14,000 ha of receptive fuels, on average, to spot-fire occurrence within the Loess Canyons Experimental Landscape. This study demonstrates that woody encroachment drastically increases risks associated with wildfire, and that spot fire distances associated with woody encroachment are much lower in prescribed fires used to control woody encroachment compared to wildfires.

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Fuel treatments in shrublands experiencing PJ expansion result in trade-offs between desired vegetation and increased fire behavior

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While prescribed fire and mechanical treatments in shrublands experiencing tree expansion restored understory vegetation and prevented continued juniper and pinyon infilling and growth, these fuel treatments also increased modeled surface fire behavior. Thus, management tradeoffs occur between desired future vegetation and wildfire risk after fuel treatments.

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It’s just weird: Reading the Tea Leaves S4, E3

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It’s been a weird year so far. The west experienced an exceptionally cool and moist spring, especially in the southern extent of the region. Combined with above average snowpack, fuels stayed moist, and the fire season has had a very slow start. In fact, June saw the lowest area burned since 2000, but despite the slow start over 400 locations in the conterminous US have experienced record temperatures. Moreover, we have seen several weeks of anomalous heat waves, especially in the southwestern US. Yet still the fire season is slower than normal, but fuels are drying out fast.

In this 22-minute webcast, Research Ecologist Dr. Matt Reeves analyzes rangeland fuel conditions across the western US by evaluating the main factors of fuel amount and type, proximity to larger diameter fuel, drought conditions, and level of curing leading to senescent grasses in our simple but transparent hotspot algorithm. All 2022 recordings are located on the Reading the Tea Leaves page.

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LANDFIRE Office Hours: How IFTDSS is changing the look of fuels planning

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In this LANDFIRE Office Hour, Kim Ernstrom, and Wendy Detwiler, Wildland Fire Management RD&A, Technical Leads IFTDSS (and Josh Hyde: Tech Transfer Specialist, University of Idaho) discuss the basics of using IFTDSS for fuels planning. We also discuss practical examples of how IFTDSS is being used in the field.

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Variable support and opposition to fuels treatments for wildfire risk reduction: Melding frameworks for local context and collaboration

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This research used in-depth interviews to explore variable support or opposition to three fuels-reduction projects occurring in the same region of north central Washington State, USA. Results indicate that differential support or opposition to each project stemmed from a unique combination of social factors operating in each locality (e.g., past history with fuels treatments, values for public land, environmental advocacy networks), the relationships that local populations had with agency members conducting each treatment, and the ways that managers engaged populations in the design of each treatment. We used existing frameworks for understanding collaborative potential/environmental conflict and for documenting the influence of local social context on adaptive wildfire actions to help explain emergent lessons about support or opposition to each project.

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Ecological effects of pinyon-juniper removal in the western US: A synthesis of research Jan 2014-Mar 2021

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We found that there were large proportions of non-significant responses among all categories combined, with roughly half or more of all responses non-significant (48 percent for wildlife, 60 percent for vegetation-environmental), comparable to other recent systematic reviews of pinyon-juniper treatment effects. However, we also found that when there were significant responses, some important trends potentially emerged. Important undesirable outcomes included far more positive than negative responses of exotic grass and forb abundance among nearly all treatment types. Cutting treatments were also more likely to decrease biocrust cover and microbial activity. Potentially beneficial outcomes included mostly positive responses among sagebrush obligate species, including more positive than negative responses for mule deer and sage-grouse. Some treatment types (for example, mastication) also resulted in more positive than negative responses for native grasses and forbs (although, non-significant responses were the majority). We also highlighted many limitations of this review, including how responses often come from few studies, and how some response-treatment category combinations lack adequate response data. Moreover, the existing research is often insufficient to address many key questions about treatment effects, largely owing to short time-scales and limited spatial extents of observations, which do not match the size of treatments being implemented by land managers, nor capture long-term, post-treatment ecological dynamics. We also identify a lack of research that addresses key interactions that could undermine restoration objectives, including potential effects of climate change and grazing on post-treatment environments. Thus, we emphasize the importance of integrating these factors into future pinyon-juniper treatment research, and we stress the need for use of monitoring programs and research studies that partake in data collection and analysis over long durations and broad spatial scales.

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Connecting dryland fine-fuel assessments to wildfire exposure and natural resource values at risk

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By connecting high-resolution estimates of fine fuel to climatic, biophysical and land-use factors, wildfire exposure, and a natural resource value at risk, we provide a pro-active and adaptive framework for fire risk management within highly variable and rapidly changing dryland landscapes.

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Rx Fire Science and Management Workshop

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A workshop for all wildland fire management partners across the 20 state NE-MW region to share region-wide, science-based, fire ecology information oriented toward expanding and maintaining the use of prescribed fire across all landscapes, jurisdictions, and fire-dependent ecosystems.

This regional workshop will:

  • Provide a forum for all wildland fire management partners to share region-wide, science-based, fire ecology information oriented toward expanding and maintaining the use of prescribed fire across all landscapes, jurisdictions, and fire-dependent ecosystems.
  • Provide an opportunity for scientists, managers, and practitioners across the 20-state region to share prescribed fire related experiences, successes, and potential solutions to implementation challenges.
  • Provide an opportunity for agency leaders and managers to interact with state prescribed fire councils and other key partners.
    Serve as a model for future annual or biennial workshops.

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