Research and Publications
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Section I – Describes components of an overall framework for sagebrush conservation. With individual chapters that provide a manager’s guide to inform landscapes conservation prioritization, approaches to increasing capacity across scales, monitoring and adaptive management constructs, and alternative approaches to develop partnerships and coordinate conservation actions at various scales.
Section II – Contains chapters that describe strategies and actions to address individual threats or to restore degraded sagebrush communities. Each includes a brief introductory narrative establishing the rationale and contextual basis for the strategic themes.
Section III – Highlights 15 case studies that were selected for possible best management practices and provides focused examples of successful collaborative conservation programs from across the West.
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In this article, we focus on a conceptual approach to developing, delivering, and applying ecological forecasts for restoration. We illustrate the potential of this approach by adapting existing ecological models to build an initial version of a decision support tool that delivers a species-specific ecological forecast for big sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata) establishment. Integrating ecological forecasts into plans for restoration seeding presents opportunities to anticipate and account for environmental variability.
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To reduce the risk of wildfire, it’s important to understand where fuel treatments are most likely to succeed. Recent research by Rocky Mountain Research Station (RMRS) scientists and their collaborators provides insights for prioritizing fuel treatments in sagebrush country. The group first developed four spatial layers to characterize sagebrush and pinyon-juniper landscapes: (1) indicators of ecological resilience to disturbance and resistance to invasion, (2) sagebrush associations, (3) persistent pinyon-juniper woodlands, and (4) pinyon-juniper expansion phases. The new indicators of resilience and resistance are dynamic because they are based on climate and soil moisture availability and allow assessment of potential treatment effects in a rapidly changing environment.
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The goal of this document is to summarize recent review articles that synthesize the state of wildland fire smoke communication research. We provide a summary of primary themes and then list key findings by article. Please note that each review article encompasses multiple studies, and here we focus on the themes shared across the articles. The review articles and the studies they cover offer abundant additional information, nuance, and detail for those seeking a deeper understanding of the available research.
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We conducted a within-subject observational study with 25 wildland firefighters from the British Columbia Wildfire Service, Canada. Data were collected remotely during the 2021 and 2022 fire seasons. Wrist-worn actigraphy and the psychomotor vigilance task served as objective, mobile measures of sleep and cognitive function, respectively. Web-based surveys were used to collect shift information and subjective cognitive function. Linear mixed effects modeling was used to control for inter-individual differences and explore the influence of participant-factors. Average sleep duration on fire suppression days was 6.7 h (s.d. 66 min), while average shift duration was 13.8 h (s.d. 108 min). Poor sleep and longer shift durations were both associated with reduced cognitive function across all metrics (P < 0.01; P < 0.001).
Firefighters are often exposed to poor sleep and long shifts, which are both associated with impaired cognitive function.
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Wildland firefighters (WLFFs) face significant brain health risks due to prolonged exposure to smoke, extreme heat, dehydration, physical exertion and irregular sleep patterns. Here, the literature is presented as a narrative review on studies that inform our knowledge on WLFF brain health. The neurotoxic components of wildfire smoke, such as particulate matter, carbon monoxide and polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons, can disrupt brain function by inducing oxidative stress, neuroinflammation and hypoxia, which can contribute to cognitive decline and increase the risk of neurodegenerative diseases. Chronic heat exposure can exacerbate these risks leading to impaired cognitive functions including attention, memory, and decision-making. Sleep deprivation and extended shifts can compound cognitive and mood impairments through elevated stress hormone levels and inflammatory cytokines. Psychological stressors in wildland firefighting, including exposure to traumatic events, increase vulnerability to post-traumatic stress, anxiety, depression and suicidal ideation. Protective strategies for WLFFs should include personal protective equipment, hydration protocols, extended recovery periods and mental health programs. Future research should focus on long-term studies to fully understand the cumulative effects of these occupational hazards on brain health and inform policy changes to safeguard WLFF well-being. This holistic approach is critical as fire seasons become longer and more intense due to climate change.
Intensifying fire season aridity portends ongoing expansion of severe wildfire in western US forests
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Here, we quantified area burned and area burned severely in western US forests from 1985 to 2022 and evaluated trends through time. We also assessed key relationships between area burned, extent and proportion burned severely, and fire season climate aridity. Lastly, using the strong relationships between fire season aridity and both area burned and area burned severely, we predicted future fire activity under ongoing warming. While annual area burned increased 10-fold over our study period, area burned severely increased 15-fold. Disproportionate increases in severe fire occurred across a wide range of forest types from 1985 to 2022. Importantly, we found that the proportion of area burned severely increased with fire extent at the scale of individual fires and total annual area burned. The relationships between fire season aridity and fire were strong, and our models predicted further increases in fire activity, leading to 2.9- and 4-fold increases in area burned and area burned severely, respectively, under mid-21st century climate. Without a substantial expansion of management activities that effectively reduce fire severity (e.g., thinning of understory and fire-intolerant trees combined with prescribed fire), wildfires will increasingly drive forest loss and degrade ecosystem services including carbon storage, biodiversity conservation, and water yield, with major impacts to human communities.
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This review informs prevention decision-making by highlighting current best practices categorized under the four key approaches to fire prevention–education, enforcement, engineering, and administration–while simultaneously revealing themes and gaps that merit further attention. We focus on interventions that can reduce accidental or negligent ignitions within the purview of land management and fire prevention professionals. We conclude with a call to modernize the field of wildfire prevention social science that promotes the diversification of study locations, design, and prevention techniques studied. Improved research and documentation surrounding the outcomes of individual or combinations of strategies and the user groups they target can help transition anecdotal assessments of prevention effectiveness into empirically informed decision-making that supports more strategic administration.
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This Storymap is developed and maintained by the Wildfire Risk Management Science Team at the USDA Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station. Information presented here represents ongoing efforts of team members and their collaborators and partners at research universities (Oregon State University, Colorado State University), land managing agencies (The National Forest System, National Park Service, Bureau of Land Management, and multiple state partners), and independent land and resource management partners. Additional support is provided by Wildland Fire Management Research, Development & Application Risk Management Assistance.
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Here, we model relationships between satellite observations of fire radiative power (FRP) and contemporaneous fire weather index, and then we project how FRP is likely to change under near-term warming scenarios. The models project widespread growth in FRP, with increases expected across 88% of fire-prone areas worldwide under 1.5 °C warming. Projected increases in FRP were highest in the Mediterranean biome and Temperate Conifer Forest biome, and increases were twice as large under 2 °C warming compared to 1.5 °C. Disaster-prone areas of the wildland-urban interface saw an average of 3.6 times greater projected increases than non-disaster-prone areas, suggesting wildfire impacts will intensify most in regions already vulnerable to dangerous wildfires. These findings emphasise the urgent need to anticipate changes to fire behaviour and proactively manage wildland-urban ecosystems to reduce future fire intensity.