Fuels & Fuel Treatments
We are hosting several workshops, symposia as part of the 2021 Society for Range Management annual meeting. **You do not need to be registered for the SRM meeting to attend.
Strategic Targeted Grazing to Reduce Fine Fuels (Feb 16, 1:30-4:00 PST/2:30-5:00 MST)
The Strategic Grazing symposium was held in conjunction with the Society for Range Management Virtual Meeting. It provides updates on the Idaho and Nevada strategic grazing demonstration areas. Symposium recording.
Sagebrush Ecosystem Recovery 10+ Yrs after Treatments (Feb 17, 1:30-3:30 PST/2:30-4:30 MST)
The Sagebrush Ecosystem symposium provides Sagebrush Steppe Treatment Evaluation Project (SageSTEP) updates. It was held in conjunction with the Society for Range Management Virtual Meeting. It shares what’s been learned after at least 10 years post-treatment. Symposium recording.
Big Sagebrush Restoration Status (Feb 18, 1:30-4:00 PST/2:30-5:00 MST)
The Big Sagebrush symposium was held in conjunction with the Society for Range Management Virtual Meeting. It was brought to you by the Rangeland Equipment and Technology Council (RTEC). Symposium recording.
The Advanced Burn Boss Workshop and Fire Science Symposium (click “Log in as Guest” in the event portal) is a combined virtual event that will provide targeted training for burn bosses: RT300, IFTDSS, and smoke modeling, as well as interactive presentations for a wide audience that bridge research and practice using the three pillars of the Cohesive Strategy: Resilient Ecosystems, Fire Adapted Communities, and Safe and Effective Wildfire Response.
The Sagebrush Ecosystem Recovery symposium will provide Sagebrush Steppe Treatment Evaluation Project (SageSTEP) updates. It will be held in conjunction with the Society for Range Management Virtual Meeting. It will share what’s been learned after at least 10 years post-treatment. **You do not need to be registered for the SRM meeting to join.
Webinar recording.
Prescribed fire can result in significant benefits to ecosystems and society. Examples include improved wildlife habitat, enhanced biodiversity, reduced threat of destructive wildfire, and enhanced ecosystem resilience. Prescribed fire can also come with costs, such as reduced air quality and impacts to fire sensitive species. To plan for appropriate use of prescribed fire, managers need information on the tradeoffs between prescribed fire and wildfire regimes. In this study, we argue that information on tradeoffs should be presented at spatial and temporal scales commensurate with the scales at which these processes occur and that simulation modeling exercises should include some realistic measure of wildfire probability. To that end, we synthesized available scientific literature on relationships between prescribed fire and wildfire regimes, and their associated ecological and societal effects, focusing specifically on simulation modeling studies that consider wildfire probability and empirical and modeling studies that consider prescribed fire and wildfire regimes at spatial and temporal scales beyond individual events.
Managed wildfire is an increasingly relevant management option to restore variability in vegetation structure within fire-suppressed montane forests in western North America. Managed wildfire often reduces tree cover and density, potentially leading to increases in soil moisture availability, water storage in soils and groundwater, and streamflow. However, the potential hydrologic impacts of managed wildfire in montane watersheds remain uncertain and are likely context dependent. Here, we characterize the response of vegetation and soil moisture to 47 years (1971–2018) of managed wildfire in Sugarloaf Creek Basin (SCB) in Sequoia-Kings Canyon National Park in the Sierra Nevada, California, USA, using repeat plot measurements, remote sensing of vegetation, and a combination of continuous in situ and episodic spatially distributed soil moisture measurements. We find that, by comparison to a nearby watershed with higher vegetation productivity and greater fire frequency, the managed wildfire regime at SCB caused relatively little change in dominant vegetation over the 47 year period and relatively little response of soil moisture. Fire occurrence was limited to drier mixed-conifer sites; fire-caused overstory tree mortality patches were generally less than 10 ha, and fires had little effect on removing mid- and lower strata trees. Few dense meadow areas were created by fire, with most forest conversion leading to sparse meadow and shrub areas, which had similar soil moisture profiles to nearby mixed-conifer vegetation. Future fires in SCB could be managed to encourage greater tree mortality adjacent to wetlands to increase soil moisture, although the potential hydrologic benefits of the program in drier basins such as this one may be limited.
Webinar recording.
There is broad understanding and agreement lately that there is a need to substantially increase the use of prescribed fire to create landscape resiliency, protect communities and ensure a safe and effective wildfire response. In response, more and more Prescribed Burn Associations are forming. Please join us as we visit with nine practitioners involved with Prescribed Burn Associations to learn about their models for implementation, their challenges and successes, and how you might start a similar organization where you live.
The California Range Management Advisory Committee, an advisory body to the California Natural Resources Agency under the Board of Forestry and Fire Protection, is co-hosting a virtual workshop with the California Fire Science Consortium to discuss the use of prescribed livestock grazing as a sustainable fuel reduction and environmental management tool.
Three separate workshops will be hosted on different topics as listed below. Each workshop will be followed by an optional virtual networking hour where participants can engage with each other and ask questions. All sessions are tentatively scheduled to start at 10am and last for 2 hours with an optional networking option.
Webinar recording.
Vegetation management in the shrub steppe is critical to protecting communities and meeting landscape management goals. Chris Schactschneider, OSU Extension, and Seth Hulett, Washington Department of Fish and Wildlife, will share examples of how grazing and mechanical treatments can be used to change fire behavior.
Meta-analyses indicated that while P–J reduction caused significant positive overall effects on all shrub and herbaceous components (including invasive cheatgrass [Bromus tectorum] and exotic annual forbs), responses were contingent on treatment- and plant community-type combinations. Restoration seedings also had strong positive effects on understory vegetation by augmenting changes in perennial grass and perennial forb components, which similarly varied by plant community type. Collectively, our results identified specific situations where broad-scale efforts to reverse woodland encroachment substantially met short-term management goals of restoring valuable ecosystem services and where P–J reduction disposed certain plant community types to ecological risks, such as increasing the probability of native species displacement and stimulating an annual grass-fire cycle. Resource managers should carefully weigh these benefits and risks and incorporate additional, appropriate treatments and/or conservation measures for the unique preconditions of a given plant community in order to minimize exotic species responses and/or enhance desirable outcomes.
Watch video, 11:45
Six ranchers are working with the Bureau of Land Management during the spring months to reduce fuel loads (mostly cheatgrass) on the front side of the Owyhee Mountains in Idaho with tightly controlled cattle grazing. The goal is for the cattle to “mow” cheatgrass and grasslands to a 2-3 inch stubble height for 30 miles (200 feet wide on either side of a road) from March 1 – June 30. This is the fourth year of the experimental project.
The larger goal is to stop large “mega” fires that are burning up high-quality grasslands and sage-steppe habitat in the Great Basin — habitat that’s crucial to support wildlife, songbirds, and livestock grazing.
So far, the BLM and the ranchers are happy with the results. A research project by the BLM and USDA Agricultural Research Service is evaluating the use of cattle to create fire breaks in the Owyhees, Elko, Nev., and Lakeview, Ore. The research takes a broader look at what techniques work best.