Fuels & Fuel Treatments
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Past practices, such as fire suppression, have created densely packed forests with an overabundance of woody vegetation. Live or dead, this vegetation can fuel severe wildfire. Overcrowded growing conditions also prevent trees and other plants from obtaining sufficient nutrients, light, or water to bounce back and remain healthy following a stressful event. The warming climate further stresses vegetation and can foster tinderbox conditions on the landscape, especially under widespread persistent drought.
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The Wildfire Crisis Strategy calls for ramping up forest treatments on Federal, State, Tribal, and private lands well above current levels. Public and stakeholder engagement, consultation, and collaboration are critical to successful implementation of the strategy. Best available science can inform how to improve the way we engage with communities and help us collectively determine the right treatment locations and tools.
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Around the world, woodlands and forests are replacing native grasslands and shrublands which impacts wildlife and people. In the sagebrush biome of the American West, pinyon pine, juniper, and other native conifer trees are expanding into imperiled shrublands. Learn more about the implications of this woodland encroachment and what communities are doing to restore healthy and resilient shrublands.
Webinar recordings.
- Monday, November 14 SCIENCE x Forests: Silviculture for the present and future
A compendium of silviculture treatments for forest types in the United States: Silviculture guidance to support modeling, scenario planning, and large-scale simulations, presented by Thomas Schuler
Prescribed burning considerations following mechanical treatments, presented by Sharon Hood
Reforestation in an era of megafires: A wicked problem for the Forest Service in Region 5 and elsewhere, presented by Martin Ritchie - Tuesday, November 15 SCIENCE x Forests: Forests and climate change
Preparing our forests for the future, presented by Mike Battaglia
The Pacific Northwest carbon dynamics research initiative: Co-production to assist land managers and policy makers, presented by Andrew Gray
Sink, swim, or surf: Surging climate change impacts and the role of climate-adaptive silviculture, presented by Alejandro Royo - Wednesday, November 16 SCIENCE x Forests: Innovations in forest research
From the forest to the faucet: Tools and data linking surface water from forested lands to public water systems, presented by Peter Caldwell
Cloud computing advances regional old-growth forest monitoring for the Northwest Forest Plan, presented by David M Bell
What is resilience in frequent-fire forests and how can it be measured?, presented by Malcolm North - Thursday, November 17 SCIENCE x Forests: Urban forestry, community, and wood utilization
The science and practice of urban silviculture, presented by Nancy Sonti and Rich Hallett
Expanding urban wood utilization, presented by Charlie Becker
Not by trees alone: Centering community in urban forestry, presented by Lindsay Campbell - Friday, November 18 SCIENCE x Forests: Invasion and outbreaks in forests
Species home-making in ecosystems: Toward place-based ecological metrics of belonging, presented by Susan Cordell
Invasion and outbreak within an epidemiological model, presented by Rima Lucardi
Mapping Armillaria-killed trees with high-resolution remote sensing, presented by Benjamin Bright
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Cows were fitted with VF collars (calves not collared) that use Global Positioning System positioning to contain cattle inside fuel break boundaries and record animal locations at 5-min intervals. End-of-trial forage utilization was 48.5% ± 3.7% and 5.5% ± 0.7% for areas inside and outside of the fuel break, respectively. Daily percentage of cattle locations inside the fuel break was initially > 94% but declined to approximately 75% by the end of the trial. Percentage daily locations of dry cows and cow/calf pairs inside the fuel break was 98.5% ± 0.5% and 80.6% ± 1.1%, respectively (P < 0.001). Our data suggest virtual fencing can be a highly effective method of concentrating grazing to reduce herbaceous fuel biomass within linear fuel breaks. Efficacy of this method could be substantially impacted by use of dry versus cow/calf pairs.
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It is clear that the state of knowledge based on empirical evidence is at its infancy. This is likely because of the vast challenges associated with designing and implementing sampling designs that account for combinations of spatial and temporal configurations prior to wildfire occurrence. We also suspect part of the reason empirical evidence is lacking is because the distinction between site-level and landscape-level effects is not well recognized in the literature. All papers used the term landscape, but rarely defined the landscape, and some specified identifying landscape-level effects that were truly site-level effects. Future research needs to develop innovative ways to interpret the role of fuel treatments at the landscape level to provide insight on strategic designs and approaches to maximize fuel treatment effectiveness.
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Nonnative species can be introduced or exacerbated by fire and fuels treatments. This resource describes how this can happen and what can be done to minimize the occurrence of nonnative species on burned sites or following fuels management.
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Maximizing the effectiveness of fuel treatments at the landscape scale is a key research and management need given the inability to treat all areas at risk from wildfire, and there is a growing body of scientific literature assessing this need. We synthesized existing scientific literature on landscape-scale fuel treatment effectiveness in North American ecosystems through a systematic literature review. We identified 127 studies that addressed this topic using one of three approaches: simulation modeling, empirical analysis, or case studies. Of these 127 studies, most focused on forested landscapes of the western United States. Together, they generally provided evidence that fuel treatments reduced negative outcomes of wildfire and in some cases promoted beneficial wildfire outcomes, although these effects diminished over time following treatment and were influenced by factors such as weather conditions at the time of fire. The simulation studies showed that fuel treatment extent, size, placement, timing, and prescription influenced the degree of effectiveness.
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Historical wildfire ignition locations and NOAA’s hourly time series of surface weather at 2.5 km resolution are used to drive ELMFIRE to produce wildfire hazards representative of the 2022 and 2052 conditions at 30 m resolution, with the future weather conditions scaled to the IPCC CMIP5 RCP4.5 model ensemble predictions. Winds and vegetation were held constant between the 2022 and 2052 simulations, and climate change’s impacts on the future fuel conditions are the main contributors to the changes observed in the 2052 results. Non-zero wildfire exposure is estimated for 71.8 million out of 140 million properties across CONUS. Climate change impacts add another 11% properties to this non-zero exposure class over the next 30 years, with much of this change observed in the forested areas east of the Mississippi River. “Major” aggregate wildfire exposure of greater than 6% over the 30-year analysis period from 2022 to 2052 is estimated for 10.2 million properties. The FSF-WFM represents a notable contribution to the ability to produce property-specific, climate-adjusted wildfire risk assessments in the US.
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Cows were fitted with VF collars (calves not collared) that use Global Positioning System positioning to contain cattle inside fuel break boundaries and record animal locations at 5-min intervals. End-of-trial forage utilization was 48.5% ± 3.7% and 5.5% ± 0.7% for areas inside and outside of the fuel break, respectively. Daily percentage of cattle locations inside the fuel break was initially > 94% but declined to approximately 75% by the end of the trial. Percentage daily locations of dry cows and cow/calf pairs inside the fuel break was 98.5% ± 0.5% and 80.6% ± 1.1%, respectively (P < 0.001). Our data suggest virtual fencing can be a highly effective method of concentrating grazing to reduce herbaceous fuel biomass within linear fuel breaks. Efficacy of this method could be substantially impacted by use of dry versus cow/calf pairs.