Webinar
Despite a clear link between drought and wildfire, there is currently a lack of information for stakeholders at the regional and local levels for improved wildfire risk management using drought early warning information. Fire managers and other specialized fire professionals, such as Incident Meteorologists, will increasingly need to effectively use drought information in forecasts of fire behavior at fire incidents, and in long-term planning (i.e., seasonal fire potential outlooks) as the climate continues to warm along with shifts in the timing and duration of fire seasons.
This webinar highlights recent efforts to incorporate drought-wildfire linkages into the National Integrated Drought Information System (NIDIS) California-Nevada Drought Early Warning System. Research has shown that drought indices which are both multi-scalar and incorporate evaporative demand are most strongly correlated to fuel moisture. Testing of the Evaporative Demand Drought Index (EDDI) was conducted by Predictive Services in Northern California during the 2018 fire season. Web tools have been developed (and some that are still in development) to access EDDI, other drought indices, and remote sensing data (often with global coverage) that can potentially benefit wildland fire management in Alaska. Focus will be on EDDI tools developed at NOAA’s Physical Science Division and Climate Engine (app.climateengine.org) developed jointly between the Desert Research Institute and University of Idaho.
Presented by Dan McEvoy, Desert Research Institute and Western Regional Climate Center, Reno, NV.
Webinar recording from Aug. 1, 2019.
For those interested in submitting a proposal for Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program funding, there are Upcoming Webinars for Interested Applicants.
The proposal process for new CFLRP projects and extensions for existing ten-year projects will involve two tiers of review. This process applies to new projects as well as projects that have received funding for 10 years and are applying for a one-time extension for the shortest time practicable to complete implementation.
Tier 1 (Pre-Proposal): Applicants provide a brief and high-level description of the proposed CFLRP project or project extension. The Regional Office will evaluate Tier 1 proposals using a common set of criteria and the Regional Forester will decide which projects should proceed with full Tier 2 proposal development.
Tier 2 (Full Proposal): Project extension and new project proposals selected in Tier 1 will proceed with detailed proposal development. These proposals will be reviewed for completeness by the Regional Office, and if they meet all of the CFLRP eligibility criteria, they will be submitted to the CFLRP Federal Advisory Committee Act (FACA) Committee for evaluation.
This webinar focuses on LANDFIRE Remap products in the Southwest U.S., with specific emphasis on California applications. Presenters Jim Smith and Kori Blankenship will review improvements to LF’s newest product offering and look at what remains the same as previous versions. LF Remap products are being released through 2019-2020, as determined by LF GeoArea.
View webinar recording.
There is wide agreement that prescribed fire is essential and under-utilized for restoring and maintaining natural ecosystem function, sustaining native wildlife populations, and mitigating wildfire hazard. There is less agreement on the history of fire, specifically the degree to which historic fire regimes and the natural communities that depend on them are essentially anthropogenic as opposed lightning-initiated as a function of climate and topography. This presentation provides an over-simplified summary of the two positions and present examples of more comprehensive research approaches that embrace data over dogma.
View webinar series recordings from 4th National Climate Assessment.
Shawn Carter, Acting Chief, USGS National Climate Adaptation Center, USGS and
Prasanna Gowda, Research Leader, Grazinglands Research Laboratory, USDA – ARS
The Nation’s authoritative assessment of climate impacts, the Fourth National Climate Assessment Vol. II: Impacts, Risks, and Adaptation in the United States (NCA4 Vol. II) was released in November 2018. This presentation will address the impacts of climate change on land cover and land-use change and forests in the United States. Presenters will discuss the assessment’s findings, including adaptation actions, what we’ve learned since the previous assessment, and what we hope to understand better in the future.
Webinar recording.
The Science Framework for Conservation and Restoration of the Sagebrush Biome is a two-part volume on managing sagebrush ecosystems in the West that was developed by an extensive interagency team of scientists and managers. An overview of using the concepts of resilience to disturbance (ability to recover) and resistance to invasive annual grasses across three geographic scales (sagebrush biome, ecoregions, and local sites) to prioritize conservation and restoration actions is provided.
The webinar discusses how to use the Science Framework in management planning efforts, focusing on considerations like monitoring and adaptive management, climate adaptation, wildfire and vegetation management, nonnative invasive plant management, application of National Seed Strategy concepts, livestock grazing management, and wild horse and burro considerations.
Michele Crist, BLM National Interagency Fire Center, and Jeanne Chambers, USFS Rocky Mountain Research Station, present.
This 4-hour webinar focuses on invasive annual grasses such as cheatgrass (Bromus tectorum), medusahead (Taeniatherum caput-medusae), and ventenata (Ventenata dubia), which are devastating western natural areas and rangeland at a landscape scale. These grass invasions favor further invasions while eliminating desirable vegetation and wildlife habitat. Further impacts include:
- A continuous bed of fine fuel associated with an increase in frequency and intensity of rangeland wildfire
- Significant reduction or elimination of desirable perennial species
- Reduced forage quality for wildlife and livestock
- Increased risks for wildlife and pollinator species
- Resulting wildfires that are a threat to humans, wildlife, property and infrastructure
Speakers address all of these points, including current management tools for the “triple threat”, highlighting recent research conducted in multiple western states.
Access podcasts from Washington State University
The Art of Range podcast provides education through conversation with some of the brightest minds in rangeland management. We interview researchers, ranchers, and resource professionals to bring you extended discussion on topics that are of interest to all. A new episode will be released every two weeks, with several episodes on a general topic area. This podcasting project is funded by a grant from the Western Center for Risk Management and has specific learning objectives which will drive the topics list.
If you are a Certified Professional in Range Management through the SRM, you may claim continuing education units for these episodes (.5 or 1 CEU per episode) by following the instructions at the conclusion of the survey.
Webinar recording.
Over the last 30 years, in woodland and forested ecosystems across the southwestern US, there has been an increasing trend in fire activity. Altered land use practices and more recent changes in precipitation patterns and warmer temperatures are widely thought to contribute to departures in fire regimes toward more frequent and larger fires with more extreme fire behavior that threatens the persistence of the various forested ecosystems. We examined climate-fire relationships in these vegetation types in Arizona and New Mexico using an expanded satellite-derived burn severity dataset that incorporates over one million additional burned hectares analyzed as extended assessments to the MTBS project’s data and five climate variables from PRISM. Climate-fire relationships were identified by comparing annual total area burned, area burned at high/low severity, and percent high severity regionally with fire season (May-August) and water year (October-September) temperature, precipitation, and vapor pressure deficit (VPD) variables. The high severity indicators were also derived for each fire individually to see if climate-fire relationships persist at the scale of the individual fire. Increasing trends toward more arid conditions were observed in all but two of the climate variables. Furthermore, VPD-fire correlations were consistently as strong or more correlated compared to temperature or precipitation indicators alone, both regionally and at the scale of the individual fire. Thus, our results support the use of VPD as a more comprehensive climate metric than temperature or other water-balance measures to predict future fire activity. Managers will have to face the implications of increasing high severity fire as trends in climate toward warmer and drier conditions become an increasingly dominant factor in driving fire regimes towards longer and more intense fire seasons across the Southwest.