Fuels & Fuel Treatments
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Abstracts of Recent Papers on Range Management in the West. Prepared by Charlie Clements, Rangeland Scientist, USDA Agricultural Research Service, Reno, NV.
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In this study we used the 79 western US national forests to examine tradeoffs between forest management scenarios targeting wildfire risk to the wildland urban interface (WUI) and those meeting agency convertible volume production targets. We quantified production frontiers to measure how the efficiency of meeting harvest volume targets is affected by prioritizing treatments to areas that transmit fire to the WUI. The results showed strong tradeoffs and scale effects on production frontiers, and more importantly substantial variation among planning areas and national forests. Prioritizing treatments to reduce fire transmission to the WUI resulted in an average harvest volume reduction of about 248m3 per ha treated. The analysis also identified opportunities where both management objectives can be achieved. This work represents the first large-scale tradeoff analysis for key management goals in forest and fuel management programs on national forests.
Researchers present results from a National Science Foundation-funded project studying management responses to Mountain Pine Beetle infestations in the western U.S. This research includes case studies of national forests and surrounding communities that were heavily affected by impacts from the beetle in Colorado, Montana, South Dakota, and Washington. The scale, scope, and public visibility of the beetle outbreak resulted in different responses in the four case study areas, including the use of different management approaches and policies. The rapid pace at which the epidemic spread also created challenges around managers’ inability to respond quickly enough. In this presentation, the scientists share findings on differences and similarities between how the different case studies responded to mountain pine beetle impacts and what policies, authorities, and approaches managers used to address beetle issues in their national forests.
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Biomass Ready is a quick and easy process to help teams design new community buildings that can better adapt to an uncertain energy future. Today the economics of biomass may not be favorable, but your community will own and operate your new building for decades, perhaps even a century. Over the lifetime of your building, your community may decide to install a biomass boiler system. Will your building be ready? Biomass Ready will help you avoid inadvertently creating barriers that make adding biomass in the future prohibitively expensive. If you can add a biomass system to your building without extensive deconstruction or demolition, your building is Biomass Ready. And Biomass Ready is simple enough that you can include it in your RFP (Request for Proposals) process – encouraging your bidders to compete on designing for future energy flexibility!
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This study compared seeding and not seeding mountain big sagebrush after juniper control (partial cutting followed with burning) in fully developed juniper woodlands (i.e., sagebrush had been largely excluded) at five sites, 7 and 8 yr after seeding. Sagebrush cover averaged ~ 30% in sagebrush seeded plots compared with ~ 1% in unseeded plots 8 yr after seeding, thus suggesting that sagebrush recovery may be slow without seeding after juniper control. Total herbaceous vegetation, perennial grass, and annual forb cover was less where sagebrush was seeded. Thus, there is a trade-off with herbaceous vegetation with seeding sagebrush. Our results suggest that seeding sagebrush after juniper control can accelerate the recovery of sagebrush habitat characteristics, which is important for sagebrush-associated wildlife. We suggest land manager and restoration practitioners consider seeding sagebrush and possibly other shrubs after controlling encroaching trees where residual shrubs are lacking after control.
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In 1998, the Joint Fire Science Program (JFSP) was statutorily authorized as a joint partnership between the U.S. Department of the Interior and the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest
Service. The program provides leadership to the wildland fire science community by identifying high-priority fire science research needs that will enhance the decisionmaking ability of
managers to meet their objectives. This publication celebrates and describes the JFSP’s contributions to and impact on the wildland fire community over the past 20 years.
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This learning series responds to Section 7.b.iii, Action Item #5 within the Fuels section of the 2015 Integrated Rangeland Fire Management Strategy, which calls for a comprehensive knowledge transfer program to enhance the fuels management program’s role in sagebrush-steppe management. The Strategy is intended to improve the efficiency and efficacy of actions to address rangeland fire, to better prevent and suppress rangeland fire, and improve efforts to restore fire-impacted landscapes.
The learning modules synthesize the state of the science for six management topics:
- Background and origins of the conservation problems facing the sagebrush steppe and greater sage-grouse
- Understanding and applying the concepts of resistance and resilience
- Management of sagebrush ecosystems experiencing conifer encroachment
- Management of sagebrush ecosystems at risk of or invaded by invasive annual grasses
- Restoration of sagebrush steppe ecosystems
- Issues specific to the eastern range of greater sage-grouse
This webinar focuses on LANDFIRE Remap products in LF’s Southwest GeoArea: Nevada, Utah, and Arizona, and sections of New Mexico, Colorado, and California. Presenters Jim Smith and Kori Blankenship of The Nature Conservancy’s LF team review improvements to LF’s newest product offerings and also look at what remains the same as in previous versions. The Southwest is the second of nine Remap regional product releases that are scheduled through mid-2020.
The webinar informs participants about the new LANDFIRE Remap products, what has changed from previous product offerings, and what remains the same or has been updated. It offers application examples taken from the SW region, and will save time to answer questions and listen to comments at the webinar’s conclusion. The presentation is directed those who are or might be considering using LANDFIRE products to inform fire and vegetation management decisions, e.g. researchers, land and project managers, fire and fuel professionals, GIS specialists, scientists, and students.
Kori Blankenship, Fire Ecologist and Jim Smith, Program Lead, of The Nature Conservancy’s LANDFIRE Team, present.
This report provides a framework for assessing cross-boundary wildfire exposure and a case study application in the western US. The case study provides detailed mapping and tabular decision support materials for prioritizing fuel management investments aimed at reducing wildfire exposure to communities located proximal to national forests. We used national FSim simulation outputs to (1) estimate cross-boundary wildfire among major land types (Federal, State, private); (2) quantify structure exposure to all western communities; (3) map sources of community wildfire exposure (firesheds); (4) characterize firesheds in terms of management opportunity and fuels; and (5) prioritize communities based on integration of exposure and fireshed characteristics.