Research and Publications
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We analyzed the relationship between predicted housing exposure to wildfire and local self-assessment of community competence to mitigate wildfire risks in 60 communities in the western US. Results generally demonstrate that (1) the number of sources of wildfire risk influences local housing exposure to wildfire, and (2) perceived community-competence is associated with predicted exposure to wildfire. We suggest that investments in ongoing updates to community risk planning and efforts to build multi-jurisdictional risk management networks may help to leverage existing capacity, especially in moderate capacity communities. The analysis improves the social-ecological understanding of wildfire risks and highlights potential causal linkages between community capacity and wildfire exposure.
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Using a sample of 722 large fires from the western United States, we observe whether a fire interacted with a previous fire, the percent area of fires burned by previous fires, and the percent perimeter overlap with previous fires. Fires that interact with previous fires are likely to be larger and have lower total expenditures on average. Conditional on a fire encountering a previous fire, a greater extent of interaction with previous fires is associated with reduced fire size but higher expenditures, although the expenditure effect is small and imprecisely estimated. Subsequent analysis suggests that fires that interact with previous fires may be systematically different from other fires along several dimensions. We do not find evidence that interactions with previous fires reduce suppression expenditures for subsequent fires. Results suggest that previous fires may allow suppression opportunities that otherwise might not exist, possibly reducing fire size but increasing total expenditures.
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It is sometimes assumed the sparse and low statured vegetation in arid systems would limit the effectiveness of two remote-sensing derived indices of burn severity: the difference Normalised Burn Ratio (dNBR) and relativised difference Normalised Burn Ratio (RdNBR). We compared the relationship that dNBR, RdNBR and a ground-based index of burn severity (the Composite Burn Index, CBI) had with woody cover and woody density 1 year after burning in five fires that occurred in the Mojave Desert during 2005. Statistically, dNBR and RdNBR were both effective measures of severity in all three elevation zones; woody cover and density had steep exponential declines as the values of each remote-sensing index increased. We found though that dNBR was more ecologically interpretable than RdNBR and will likely be of most relevance in the Mojave Desert.
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A new study shows burned leaf litter and other biomaterials can leach these molecules—called pyrogenic carbon—into fresh water where they react with sunlight. That means pyrogenic carbon in our waterways could degrade into carbon dioxide faster than previously suggested, providing an unexpected source of this greenhouse gas to the atmosphere, according to the researchers.
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This study presents a novel risk-science approach that aligns wildfire response decisions, mitigation opportunities, and land management objectives by consciously integrating social, ecological and fire management system needs. We use fire-prone landscapes of the US Pacific Northwest as our study area, and report on and describe how three complementary risk-based analytic tools—quantitative wildfire risk assessment, mapping of suppression difficulty, and atlases of potential control locations—can form the foundation for adaptive governance in fire management. Together, these tools integrate wildfire risk with fire management difficulties and opportunities, providing a more complete picture of the wildfire risk management challenge. Leveraging recent and ongoing experience integrating local experiential knowledge with these tools, we provide examples and discuss how these geospatial datasets create a risk-based planning structure that spans multiple spatial scales and uses.
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Modelling the spatial prioritization of fuel treatments and their net effect on values at risk is an important area for applied work as economic damages from wildfire continue to grow. We model and demonstrate a cost-effective fuel treatment planning algorithm using two ecosystem services as benefits for which fuel treatments are prioritized. We create a surface of expected fuel treatment costs to incorporate the heterogeneity in factors affecting the revenue and costs of fuel treatments, and then prioritize treatments based on a cost-effectiveness ratio to maximize the averted loss of ecosystem services from fire. We compare treatment scenarios that employ cost-effectiveness with those that do not, and use common tools and models in a case study of the Sisters Ranger District on the Deschutes National Forest in central Oregon.
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Recent debate over the efficiency of flood irrigation and resulting transition to other “more efficient” types of irrigation has put many of the working wet meadows sustained by flood irrigation at risk. As the sustainability of these landscapes is primarily dependent on ranchers’ management decisions, we sought to gain a deeper understanding of factors influencing ranchers who flood irrigate and how these factors interrelate.
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In common gardens at two sites over two years differences in both ploidy type and genetic variation within ploidy were observed in phenology, morphology, and production traits on 57 octoploid and 52 tetraploid basin wildrye from the Intermountain West. Octoploids had larger leaves, longer culms, and greater crown circumference than tetraploids but the numerical ranges of plant traits and their source climates overlapped between ploidy types. Still, among populations octoploids often had greater genetic variation for traits and occupied more diverse climates than tetraploids. The link between genetic traits and seed source climates suggests climate driven natural selection and adaptive evolution in basin wildrye. The more diverse climates occupied by octoploids and higher trait variation suggests a higher capacity for ecological differentiation than tetraploids in the Intermountain West.
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This report is part of an ongoing process of annual monitoring. It describes current conditions but is not an analysis or a description of a change of conditions. Although annual reports were produced for the years 2016 and 2017, the 2019 report also includes information from 2018. The 2019 report shows that:
- FS projects improved habitat for sage-grouse on nearly 480,000 acres from 2016-2019.
- Fires burned approximately 260,000 acres of greater sage-grouse habitat on National Forest System lands in 2016-2019.
- Data on habitat degradation are available from 2015-2018, and cumulative anthropogenic disturbance was at 0.03% on greater sage-grouse biologically significant units.
- Greater sage-grouse numbers in western states continue to cycle and are currently within the natural range of variability.
Biological soil crusts (BSCs) were sampled by habitat types within and adjacent to the Orchard Combat Training Center (OCTC) in southwest Idaho. We focused on five native vascular plant-dominated current habitat types within the OCTC, including: 1) Wyoming sagebrush, 2) saltbush, 3) rabbitbrush, 4) winterfat, and 5) Sandberg bluegrass. We describe how BSC cover and species richness varied with habitat types in the study area. We recorded the relative abundance of BSCs and vascular plant species and collected voucher specimens for each BSC. The biodiversity of each BSC in these arid habitat types was much greater than many ecologists have assumed.