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Reburns, sequential overlapping fires occurring in an unusually short timeframe, are expected to become more common and widespread with increases in fire-conducive weather. The context for reburns varies by ecosystem; in subalpine forests of the Northern Rockies, high-severity fires separated by less than 30 years are considered reburns. Join researchers Kristin Braziunas (Technical University of Munich, Germany) and Tyler Hoecker (Northwest Climate Adaptation Science Center) as they discuss recent studies in the Greater Yellowstone and Glacier National Park looking at post-fire recovery after short-interval reburns.
Short-interval high-severity reburns that are outside the historical range of variability of a system can erode the resilience of subalpine forests by undermining fire-adaptive traits and changing the microclimate that affects tree seedling establishment. These reburns diminish tree regeneration but could also lessen subsequent burn severity. Short-interval fire could lead to rapid, surprising changes in forest resilience during the 21st century.
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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.
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This webinar features insights and lessons from three communities in Colorado —the City of Colorado Springs, Eagle County, and Ouray County— and their successful approaches to local adoption and enforcement of wildfire regulations. This webinar is based on a new report from the Community Wildfire Planning Center, Regulating the Wildland-Urban Interface in Colorado.
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Smoke is challenging. It can be lofted high into the atmosphere to interact with cloud processes. It can smolder near the ground, depositing emissions. The combination of aerosols and trace gases create their own chemical mix, with reactions that are as yet unidentified. Temperature and atmospheric water content interact with the smoke plume and fog processes. Smoke also blocks the transmission of solar radiation, hindering photolysis reactions. Many of the trace gases emitted from wildland fires have yet to be identified, as do the intermediary products produced in a plume. With the outlook for more wildfires in the future, especially in a changing climate—and with tighter health standards—understanding these processes will become more critical in the years to come.
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Study results suggest increasing the frequency of disturbances (a lower disturbance return interval [DRI]) would reduce the percentage of high-severity fire on landscape but not the total amount of wildfire in general. However, a higher DRI reduced carbon storage and sequestration, particularly in management strategies that emphasized prescribed fire over hand or mechanical fuel treatments.
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Time-controlled, short-duration, high intensity sheep or cattle grazing for several days in early spring removes substantial amounts of alien annual plant seed while it is still in inflorescence and opens up the sward canopy to allow light to penetrate to young, short-statured seedling perennials. This grazing event must be timed to allow perennial grass regrowth, flowering and seed set before spring soil moisture is exhausted. It must be intense enough to graze off the grass inflorescences of most alien annual grasses. The result is increased live crown cover for mature perennial grasses, reduced decadent dead-center growth forms in bunchgrasses, and improved light availability to tiller bases which promotes basal bud activation and new vegetative and reproductive tiller formation. These perennial grass responses constitute what managers term improved plant vigor.
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This study used BehavePlus to model fire behavior in fuel breaks created by treating annual grasses with herbicides and releasing perennial bunch grasses. Flame height reductions of up to 90% were possible.
Erik Beever, USGS, presented this webinar to the Great Basin LCC on his results on pika distribution and climate change using historical surveys, more-systematic and more-comprehensive recent surveys, and a diversity of technological and modeling advances. The information will help tackle numerous questions at the interface of how Great Basin systems work and how Basin resources may be managed and conserved, amidst contemporary climate change and other influences.
In this webinar, Steve Knick, USGS Forest and Rangeland Ecosystem Science Center, shares his research on conservation issues related to sage grouse and other species of concern and approaches for prioritizing management to address conservation issues.
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From 1992–2020, 50% of recreation-caused ignitions in these three states occurred on lands managed by the U.S. Forest Service. The mean annual number of recreation-caused ignitions on national forests in the three states during this period was relatively stable, about 500, whereas recreation-caused ignitions within other jurisdictions decreased by 40%. Improved understanding of the impact of human and climatic factors on recreation-caused ignitions could provide valuable insights for shaping policy and management decisions. We found that mean annual densities of recreation-caused ignitions on national forests were 7 times greater within 1 km of designated campgrounds than >1 km from campgrounds, although 80% of recreation-caused ignitions occured >1 km from designated campgrounds. Ignition density in campgrounds increased non-linearly with overnight visitor density; a doubling of visitor density was associated with a ∼40% increase in ignitions. Large (≥4 ha) recreation-caused wildfires, especially those ignited in designated campgrounds, tended to occur concurrent with drought and 1–2 years after anomalously wet conditions. These results suggest that accounting for drought in implementation of fire restrictions, and targeting wildfire-prevention awareness to recreational users outside designated campgrounds, might reduce the likelihood of recreation-caused ignitions.