Fuel treatment effectiveness in the southern Blue Mountains of Oregon

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While fuel treatments in the dry conifer forests of the inland western U.S. are effective at reducing wildfire spread and severity at the stand-level, how effective are they at changing wildfire activity at the landscape scale? And will current management practices be sufficient as forests and climate change over the next century? Brooke Cassell presents the results of her recently-defended dissertation on the effects of fuel treatments in the southern Malheur National Forest and surrounding landscape. This study used a dynamic forest landscape model to compare alternative management strategies’ effects on wildfire activity under contemporary and extreme weather scenarios.