Webinar
Webinar recording.
Ecosystems of the western United States are experiencing vegetation type conversions (VTC) in response to land-use change, climate warming, and their interactive effects with wildland fire. VTC is one of the most pressing management issues in the southwestern US, yet current strategies to intervene and address change often use trial-and-error approaches devised after the fact. This presentation discusses findings on VTC challenges, management responses, and outcomes from the collective experience of managers, scientists, and practitioners across the southwestern US.
Ecological reorganization across the region is not only extensive – it is complex, predominantly driven by high-severity wildfire. By a large margin, affected semi-arid forests convert to shrubland, while chaparral and sagebrush areas nearly always convert to non-native grasses. Management interventions in VTC areas most often attempt to reverse changes, although these efforts cover only a small portion of high-severity burn areas undergoing VTC. Efforts to facilitate VTC are rare but hold the potential to cover large spatial areas.
The presenter’s findings underscore that type conversion is a common outcome of high-severity wildland fire in the southwestern US. As the drivers increase with climate change, VTC appears increasingly likely in many ecological contexts, and may require management paradigms to transition as well.
Webinar recording.
Climate change is increasing the frequency, severity, and extent of area burned by wildfires in the U.S., putting more people at risk of exposure to fire itself and to smoke, which can travel thousands of miles and affect the health of millions of people. A.R. “Ravi” Ravishankara (Colorado State University) will moderate a conversation between Sarah Coefield (Missoula City-County Health Department) and Erica Fischer (Oregon State University) about how planners and decision makers are coping with these challenges and working to protect the built environment and human health.
Webinar recording.
Join FAC Net and Travis Paveglio as they present the new Fire Adapted Communities Pathways Tool. The Fire Adapted Communities Pathways Tool helps users identify a range of fire adaptation practices and resources that research and experience indicate are more likely to work in the places they live.
Learn more about the tool (or download it in advance of the presentation) here: https://fireadaptednetwork.org/resources/fac-pathways-tool/
Webinar recording.
Following a wildfire, successful tree regeneration is mediated by multiple factors, from the microsite to landscape scale. This presentation demonstrates the importance of microsite conditions such as soil moisture and temperature in predicting conifer tree establishment. The speakers examined the footprint and behavior of a large 2018 wildfire in southern Colorado to understand how fire severity and post-fire logging influenced stand structure, fuels, vegetation, and soil microsite conditions. Their findings show that salvage-logged plots demonstrated lower daily average temperature and minimum soil moisture and higher fuel loading across most fuel size classes relative to unlogged plots, which also corresponded with a loss of dead standing wood and little to no canopy cover. Early post-fire conifer regeneration was low across all plots, but lower soil moisture and higher soil temperature negatively impacted the density of regeneration. Careful consideration of soil impacts and the associated changes to forest conditions should be taken when conducting post-fire logging to prevent detrimental effects on microsite conditions and forest recovery.
Webinar recording.
According to the August 2, 2022 U.S. Drought Monitor, 39.5% of the Pacific Northwest Drought Early Warning System (DEWS) is in drought. A very wet spring and early summer has greatly improved conditions compared to March, when over 70% of the region was in drought. However, a large part of Oregon is still in Extreme (D3)/Exceptional (D4) Drought, as are pockets in Idaho. This webinar will provide more information on the current conditions and outlooks, as well as two presentations on OpenET.
These webinars provide the region’s stakeholders and interested parties with timely information on current and developing drought conditions, as well as climatic events like El Niño and La Niña. Speakers will also discuss the impacts of these conditions on things such as wildfires, floods, disruption to water supply and ecosystems, as well as impacts to affected industries like agriculture, tourism, and public health.
Webinar recording.
Join presenter Erica Fisher for a summary of what we know so far about how structures in wildfires influence our water infrastructure and what can be done to potentially stop further contamination from wildfire events.
Webinar recording.
The cool wet spring across much of the northwestern US has created a sea of cheatgrass that has improved fuelbed continuity and fuel loading, often exceeding 200 percent of normal. As a result we expect the potential for grass driven wildfires, especially in the Snake River Plain, eastern Washington, northwestern Nevada and northeastern California to be at least average to considerably above average.
Webinar recording.
Wotton, Canadian Forest Service, explains lightning fire ignition and the important processes that determine the day-to-day variation of this important source of summertime fire activity in Canada. This presentation is for both academic and operational audiences in Canada’s wildfire community.
Examples from models developed and used in Ontario’s fire occurrence prediction system were provided as well as some comparisons to similar model development in other regions of the country. Reviewing the history and operational use of these models in Ontario provides useful examples of the challenges and opportunities (and ultimately the long-term investment required) in getting research into operational use in wildland fire management.
Webinar recording.
Description: This webinar will provide an introduction and overview of the FlamMap modeling system and its new capabilities with focus on several new additions:
- Landscape Utility for the creation and extraction of LANDFIRE based landscape files
- Spatial version of the First Order Fire Effects Model (FOFEM)
- Additional support for raster formats
- GeoTIFFs now supported when generating landscapes
- Save Raster Outputs as Single GeoTIFF File
- Measure Tool
- New tools to edit and graph weather
Presenter: Chuck McHugh, Fire Spatial Analyst, USFS RMRS Missoula Fire Sciences Lab
Webinar recording.
Smoke from wildfires is becoming a reality that individuals and communities face each fire season. Want to learn how you can protect yourself and those you care about from wildfire smoke? In this webinar, we talk about smoke impacts to human health, how to access important air quality information and how to differentiate between the levels of air quality. We also cover things you can do right now to prepare.