Research and Publications
View review.
This review summarizes fire use in the forests and woodlands of North America and the current state of the practice, and explores challenges associated with the use of prescribed fire. Although new scientific knowledge has reduced barriers to prescribed burning, societal aversion to risk often trumps known, long-term ecological benefits. Broader implementation of prescribed burning and strategic management of wildfires in fire-dependent ecosystems will require improved integration of science, policy, and management, and greater societal acceptance through education and public involvement in land-management issues.
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Opinion piece in the Washington Post by Crystal Kolden, fire ecologist and assistant professor of geography at the University of Idaho, where she heads the pyrogeography lab.
View report.
The key findings of this synthesis are organized along nine topical areas: types of crown fires; crown fire initiation; crown fire propagation; crown fire rate of spread; crown fire intensity and flame zone characteristics; crown fire area and perimeter growth; crown fire spotting activity; models, systems, and other decision aids for predicting crown fire behavior; and implications for fire and fuel management.
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This guide provides information about stakeholder groups to assist managers as they deal with issues facing these systems. The guide was created for land managers to consult as they plan and carry out projects, particularly on public land where groups often have conflicting interests.
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In a study of arid areas of western North America, soil inclusions called slickspots, which are saltier than adjacent soil and support different types of native vegetation, USGS scientists monitored slickspot size and cover of endangered slickspot peppergrass for two years to see if they were affected by the application of glyphosate or by a minimum-till drill in the Snake River Plain, ID. The researchers concluded that slickspot sizes were not affected by these treatments.
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This research brief reports that the cessation of fire use by Indians and a shift to climatic conditions less favorable to fire are both explanations for decreased fire frequency over the past century and a half in the southern Great Basin and Mojave desert ecotone.
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This brief evaluates the potential effects of Diorhabda herbivory on tamarisk fire behavior at Great Basin and a Mojave Desert sites.
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In this literature synthesis and meta-analysis, researchers found that the overall mean effect of fuel treatments on fire responses is large and significant, equating to a reduction in canopy volume scorch from 100% in an untreated stand to 40% in a treated stand, a reduction in scorch height from 30.5 m to 16.1 m, or an inferred reduction in flame length from 3.4 m to 2.1 m. But our synthesis demonstrates that fuel treatments vary widely in effectiveness, which is largely explained by vegetation and treatment type.
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This special report from the Ecological Restoration Institute at Northern Arizona University was presented to the U.S. Department of Interior, Office of Wildland Fire. The goal of this synthesis was to find, analyze and synthesize the best available evidence that policy makers need to make decisions about how to spend the limited money available to address the nation’s growing fire problem.
View strategy.
This Research Strategy provides an outline of important research topics to ensure that science information gaps are identified and documented in a comprehensive manner. Further, by identifying priority topics and critical information needed for planning, research, and resource management, it provides a structure to help coordinate members of an expansive research and management community in their efforts to conduct priority research.