Fire Ecology & Effects
Integrating Science and Management Across California’s Forests
Join us in Sacramento, CA to learn from your peers, grow your network and develop as a forestry professional. The California Society of American Foresters and California Fire Science Consortium are hosting the first annual California Forest Science Symposium on March 24-25, 2025. This symposium is bringing together researchers, land managers, and practitioners to share new knowledge on forests and their management.
Register Today for the 2025 California Forest Science Symposium.
General Admission: $150
SAF Member Admission: $140
Student Admission: $100
No Admission Cost for CAL FIRE Workshop, but space is limited.
The US Geological Survey Land Management Research Program and the Great Basin Fire Science Exchange teamed up to bring you updates in sagebrush, fire, and wildlife related research.
Dates, Topics, and Presentations:
1/30 – Sage-grouse, carbon topics
Webinar recording
Summary webpage
Program with speakers, talks, and resources
Greater sage-grouse hierarchical population monitoring framework: Range-wide application of an early warning systems for populations at-risk – Coates et al.
Evaluating the effectiveness of conservation actions directed for greater sage-grouse using hierarchical models and the Conservation Efforts Database – Coates et al.
Greater sage-grouse range-wide seasonal habitat maps: Identifying regional thresholds and relationships between trends and seasonal habitat use – Wann et al.
Characterizing the environmental drivers of range-wide gene flow for greater sage-grouse – Zimmerman et al.
Characterizing greater sage-grouse climate driven maladaptation – Zimmerman et al.
Quantifying carbon storage and greenhouse gas emissions in sagebrush rangelands to inform management for carbon resilience – Bagcilar and Case
2/6 – Invasive species, restoration effectiveness, and monitoring
Webinar recording
Summary webpage
Program with speakers, talks, and resources
Develop annual herbaceous percent cover maps in near-real time – Boyte et al.
Proliferation of fine fuels: Assessing under future climatic conditions – Roche et al.
Optimizing sagebrush restoration and management actions to increase connectivity within the Sagebrush Conservation Design – Tarbox et al.
Assessing cheatgrass treatment efficacy across the sagebrush biome – Tarbox et al.
Simulating trends in land health components under treatment scenarios and Sagebrush Conservation Design – Christensen et al.
Biome-wide vegetation change monitoring and warning system – Aldridge et al.
Vectors of annual grass invasion – Roche et al.
Predicting reburn risk to restoration investments – Applestein et al.
2/20 – Monitoring, pinyon-juniper, and fuels management
Webinar recording
Summary webpage
Program with speakers, talks, and resources
Planning for conservation delivery success: Linking biome-wide Sagebrush Conservation Design to local treatment planning by leveraging landscape restoration outcomes- Arkle et al.
Technical transfer tools for the Nevada and Oregon rangeland monitoring project (NORMP) – Pilliod et al.
Rapid and Other Assessment and Monitoring Methods (ROAM) project – Jeffries et al.
Pinyon-juniper treatments for minimizing climate and fire vulnerability – Noel et al.
Synthesis and forecasts of pinyon-juniper woodland die-off – Wion (No recording)
Synthesizing scientific information on treatment and natural disturbance effects on pinyon-juniper woodlands and associated wildlife habitat – Shinneman and Coates
2/27 – Fire, fuels management, invasive species –
Webinar recording
Summary webpage
Program with speakers, talks, and resources
Effectiveness of layering treatments in the “multiple-intervention” response to wildfire in sagebrush steppe – Germino
A collaborative and iterative framework for delivering applied fuel break science: With a focus on sagebrush ecosystems and the Great Basin – Shinneman et al.
UAS survey of sagebrush fuel breaks – Shinneman and Kreitler
Invasive annual grass – Economic assessment – Meldrum et al.
Longevity of herbicides targeting exotic annual grasses in sagebrush-steppe soils – Germino and Lazarus
Synthesis of indaziflam outcomes for protecting sagebrush ecosystems – Roche et al.
Can ruderal components of biocrust be maintained under increasing threats of drought, grazing, and wild horses? Condon and Coates
3/6 – Climate, vegetation trends, and more
Webinar recording
Summary webpage
Program with speakers, talks, and resources
RCMAP veg trends and updates – Rigge Integrating climate, sagebrush habitat, and R&R – Bradford et al.
Influence of future climate scenarios on habitat and population dynamics of greater sage-grouse – O’Neil et al.
Understanding and forecasting environmental controls over plant establishment in sagebrush ecosystems to enhance restoration success – Bradford et al.
Treatment and post-fire assessment tools for management of the sagebrush ecosystem – Duniway
Science to support elk management efforts to reduce CWD risk – Janousek and Graves
View (and/or order) the poster.
Sagebrush ecosystems, broadly distributed across western North America (see map), are imperiled due to a combination of modern and historical factors causing widespread degradation and habitat loss. Sagebrush shrubs are so common in these ecosystems that they create a “sea” across the landscape. This poster highlights wildflowers (forbs) common in sagebrush vegetation of the Great Basin.
These wildflowers support countless wildlife species, including some species only found in sagebrush ecosystems, such as the greater sage-grouse. (See “High sage-grouse value.”) Many forb species (including most featured here) are highly valued and used for food, medicine and ceremony by the many Indigenous peoples of the Great Basin. There are hundreds of forb species in sagebrush ecosystems, all with their own unique characteristics. The 31 species on this poster highlight common species potentially useful in restoration. These species also represent the variety of size, height, flowering timing and taxonomy (evolutionary relationships) found in typical sagebrush communities. Note: These species rarely, if ever, occur as closely together as shown in this poster.
View article.
We sampled depth-resolved layers from fire-impacted soil and combusted litter and woody materials in a series of recent pile burn scars near West Yellowstone, Montana and nearby unburned mineral soil controls to assess whether the pile burn scars exhibited microbial signatures characteristic of forest soils impacted by recent high severity wildfire. Changes in soil carbon and nitrogen chemistry and patterns of microbial alpha and beta diversity broadly aligned with those observed following wildfire, particularly the enrichment of so-called ‘pyrophilous’ taxa. Furthermore, many of the taxa enriched in burned soils likely encoded putative traits that benefit microorganisms colonizing these environments, such as the potential for fast growth or utilization of pyrogenic carbon substrates. We suggest that pile burn scars may represent a useful proxy along the experimental gradient from muffle furnace or pyrocosm studies to largescale prescribed burns in the field to advance understanding of the soil (and related layers, like ash) microbiome following high severity wildfires, particularly when coupled with experimental manipulation. Finally, we discuss existing research gaps that experimentally manipulated pile burns could be utilized to address.
View brief.
Rangelands worldwide are essential for carbon sequestration, water retention, and habitat to name a few critical benefits. Prescribed fire is used to benefit vegetation and soil and reduce fuels on rangeland sites. What hasn’t been clear is how burning on rangelands may affect microbes in the soil, which are responsible for breaking down woody material. Also missing was an understanding of how the insects that typically call rangelands home respond to these burns.
View factsheet.
Archaea, bacteria, fungi, and viruses are organisms that comprise the soil microbiome and play a crucial role in the health of the world’s forests. The soil microbiome is vital in cycling important nutrients needed by vegetation (e.g., nitrogen), stabilizing soil organic matter, and forming essential symbioses with plants, such as the ectomycorrhizal fungi (EMF) that are obligate symbiotic partners of the conifer tree species that dominate forests of western North America.
Webinar recording.
The Oregon State University Extension Fire Program would like to take you on a journey of fire throughout Oregon. In this webinar, a team of regional fire specialists share diverse stories about how fire has shaped Oregon landscapes historically and currently. Understanding fire’s role in the place you live can help you become better prepared for fire and smoke, and more aware of your local ecological setting.
Burn Plan Event information and registration.
Event flyer to forward to others.
Join us in the field to discuss prescription burn planning, treatments, monitoring, and results with Duncan Leao, Steve Howell, and Ali Paulson, USFS. This is an informal discussion open to all.