Fuels & Fuel Treatments
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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.
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Prescribed fire is one of the most widely advocated management practices for reducing wildfire hazard and has a long and rich tradition rooted in indigenous and local ecological knowledge. The scientific literature has repeatedly reported that prescribed fire is often the most effective means of achieving such goals by reducing fuels and wildfire hazard and restoring ecological function to fire-adapted ecosystems in the United States (US) following a century of fire exclusion. This has translated into calls from scientists and policy experts for more prescribed fire, particularly in the Western US, where fire activity has escalated in recent decades. The annual extent of prescribed burning in the Western US remained stable or decreased from 1998 to 2018, while 70% of all prescribed fire was completed primarily by non-federal entities in the Southeastern US. The Bureau of Indian Affairs (BIA) was the only federal agency to substantially increase prescribed fire use, potentially associated with increased tribal self-governance. This suggests that the best available science is not being adopted into management practices, thereby further compounding the fire deficit in the Western US and the potential for more wildfire disasters.
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We did not detect a difference in mean pyrogenic carbon (PyC) concentration of the mineral soil between the spring burns and the unburned controls; however, the spring burn plots did contain a number of isolated pockets with very high concentrations of PyC, suggesting a patchier burn pattern for these plots. In general, there was no detectable difference in any of the response variables when comparing the various prescribed burn treatments to one another. Reestablishing fire in these forests resulted in minor effects on the PyC concentration and pH, which may have beneficial impacts on soil carbon and available nutrients, while having few effects on other soil characteristics. This suggests that the application of low severity prescribed fires should result in little detrimental change to soils of ponderosa pine forests of the Southern Blue Mountains, while achieving management objectives such as reduction of surface fuels.
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In this issue:
Bird Communities in Transition after Treatments
Using Predictive Tools to Improve Seeding Success
There are two key takeaways from the research: 1) conifer removal is an effective tool for increasing sage grouse populations, and 2) sage grouse populations may take several years to respond to management actions because they are long lived and have lower reproductive output compared to other game birds.