Fuels & Fuel Treatments
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Large-scale encroached conifer removal is an increasingly widespread practice that benefits rangeland productivity and restores habitat quality for sagegrouse and other sagebrush-dependent wildlife. Recent studies show that after encroached conifers are removed, sage-grouse occupancy, nest survival, and brood success are greatly improved. Studies also show that sagebrush songbirds recolonize rapidly following encroached conifer removal.
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In this paper, we present a reflexive examination of how and why we, an academic and a practitioner, arrive at different evaluations of collaborative progress in natural resource management. We situate this examination in our long-standing involvement in designing, adaptively managing, and participating in the Uncompahgre Plateau collaborative forest restoration project in western Colorado, USA.
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In increasingly arid regions such as the western U.S., water managers are learning that careful management and restoration of watershed ecosystems, including thinning trees and conducting prescribed burns, are important tools in coping with a hotter, drier climate.
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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
This interactive webinar will explore how systems level trends impact the way we manage fire in unexpected ways. Hear why cutting trees in overstocked forests does far less than you might think to increase a community’s resilience to catastrophic fire; how the public framing of the “wildfire crisis” creates narratives that negatively impacts fire management; and how the unintended consequences of policy and demographics muzzle the most important ecological disturbance in almost 80% of America’s landscapes. The webinar will address both opinions and opportunities for re-creation of a restoration economy and fire’s New Deal.
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This report synthesizes our current knowledge on mastication as a forest management tool. We found that excavators, skid steers, and tractors can all be carrier machines and different types of vertical and horizontal cutting heads exist that can be front-end mounted or boom mounted, each with its own advantages and disadvantages. We provide a summary on the ecological effects from mastication. We found that there were several studies on plant and soil impacts, but limited information on impacts to wildlife habitat. Although costs of mastication widely vary depending on machine size, the physical setting, size and configuration of pre-treatment biomass, and operator skill, mastication does have market and non-market benefits. Depending on the management objective, if mastication is an option, then a thorough site evaluation should consider slope, nonnative species invasions, vulnerability of soils to erode or compact, and treatment costs.
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With increasing fire season duration and complexities in the fire management environment come opportunities to scale up the application of prescribed fire. In this webinar, we will explore the challenges climate change poses for fire managers, as well as the opportunities present in more numerous and longer prescribed burn windows with the increasing availability of fuels to burn.
Visit Cal Fire wildfire preparedness website.
Many resources are available on preparing and preventing wildfire and living and coping after wildfire.
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“Learn and Burn” workshops are an excellent way for private landowners and others to gain hands-on burning experience and knowledge from expert mentors. This webinar will provide some lessons learned from coordinating these events, and tips to putting one on in the future. Participants will be provided with a template checklist, examples of past agendas, ideas for potential partners and funding opportunities, suggestions on how to measure program impact, and successes from past events. Are you thinking of planning one of these events?
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Millions of acres of fuels reduction treatments are being implemented each year in the fire adapted forests of the US. Typical these fuel reduction treatments target small diameter trees for removal producing large amounts of unmerchantable woody material and elevating surface fuel loadings. Often this material has no market value and is piled by hand or with heavy machinery and burned on site. We studied replicated experimental pile burns from two locations (Wenatchee, WA and Santa Clara, NM) over three years. We examined the effects of time since construction (i.e., pile age) and burn season (fall and spring) on fuel bed properties, combustion dynamics, fuel consumption, and charcoal formation for hand-constructed piles in thinned ponderosa pine-dominated sites. The webinar will also touch on pile decomposition rates and unplanned fire in areas with piled fuels.