Synthesis / Tech Report
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This report documents the growth over the past 20 years of the portion of the Forest Service’s budget that is dedicated to fire, and the debilitating impact those rising costs are having on the recreation, restoration, planning, and other activities of the Forest Service.
As more and more of the agency’s resources are spent each year to provide the firefighters, aircraft, and other assets necessary to protect lives, property, and natural resources from catastrophic wildfires, fewer and fewer funds and resources are available to support other agency work—including the very programs and restoration projects that reduce the fire threat.
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The Science and Traditional Ecological Knowledge Strategic Plan guides the Great Basin LCC’s science program over a three to five year period (2015-2019). The plan outlines the LCC’s priority topics and how they will be updated, describes the process to determine annual focal topics and activities, and outlines how the LCC will implement, evaluate and adjust the science program.
Priority topics are:
- Adaptation to changes in water availability, temperature, climate variability, and extreme climatic events
- Adaptation to changes in ecosystem structure, processes, function, and interactions
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This final report includes actions to be implemented by Interior’s bureaus to immediately address the threat of rangeland fire and other disturbances to Western sagebrush-steppe landscapes and improve fire and fuels management efforts.
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The initial report includes actions to be implemented by Interior’s bureaus to immediately address the threat of rangeland fire to Western sagebrush-steppe landscapes and improve fire management efforts before the start of the 2015 wildfire season.
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This report outlines national and regional prescribed fire activity, state prescribed fire programs, and identifies impediments limiting the use of prescribed fire. The results include all federal, state, and private prescribed fire acres for forestry, rangeland, and agricultural burning that occurred in 2014.
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This report provides a GIS protocol for identifying strategic locations for fuel breaks to protect remaining large patches of habitat. It was prepared by The Nature Conservancy for the Western Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies (WAFWA).
Geodatabase that accompanies the report –
File 1 (682MB)
File 2 (84.5MB)
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This report provides a strategic approach for conservation of sagebrush ecosystems and greater sage-grouse that focuses specifically on habitat threats caused by invasive annual grasses and altered fire regimes. It uses information on (1) factors that influence sagebrush ecosystem resilience to disturbance and resistance to invasive annual grasses and (2) distribution, relative abundance, and persistence of sage-grouse populations to develop management strategies at both landscape and site scales.
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This is the final national report of the three-phased National Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy development. The National Strategy includes a set of guidelines intended to provide basic direction when planning activities. Broadly defined to address national challenges, these guidelines can be tailored to meet local and regional needs
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This report, developed by the Western Association of Fish and Wildlife Agencies (WAFWA), Wildfire and Invasive Species Initiative Working Group (Working Group), summarizes the current state of Fire Operations and Fuels management functions in big sagebrush communities. The intent of this report is to illustrate the type and responsiveness of efforts being made. Finally, the report concludes by presenting future options and a series of recommendations that may inform future policy and allocation decisions.
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This synthesis describes what is known about the cumulative impacts of historic livestock grazing patterns and short-term effects of livestock grazing on fuels and fire in sagebrush ecosystems. Over years and decades grazing can alter fuel characteristics of ecosystems. On a yearly basis, grazing can reduce the amount and alter the continuity of fine fuels, potentially changing wildlife fire spread and intensity. However, how grazing-induced fuel alterations affect wildland fire depends on weather conditions and plant community characteristics. As weather conditions become extreme, the influence of grazing on fire behavior is limited, especially in communities dominated by woody plants.