Fuels & Fuel Treatments

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Do post-fire fuel treatments and annual grasses interact to affect fire regimes in the Great Basin?

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To assess the effects of aerial and drill seeding on plant community trajectories, fuel composition, and fire regimes, this study collected geospatial datasets spanning 209,000 ha of sagebrush steppe on BLM land in southern Idaho. In the field, 68 sites were sampled for fuel and plant community composition in 2014 and 2015 across areas that had burned 1-6 times and had no, aerial, drill, or aerial + drill seeding. The study found that 1) fire and rehabilitation shaped plant communities, 2) drill seeding after multiple fires in dry, low elevation sites prevented conversion to cheatgrass-dominated systems, 3) drill seeded sites had fewer fires and increased in fire frequency more slowly than aerial seeded sites, 4) the on-the-ground conditions that led to the decision to aerially seeding after a fire led to more frequent and numerous fires.

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Nevada Society for Range Management Suggested Reading – Summer 2018

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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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Fuel bed response to vegetation treatments in juniper-invaded sagebrush

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This study was conducted in conjunction with the Sagebrush Steppe Treatment Evaluation Project (SageSTEP) and was designed to determine the impact of vegetation treatments on fuel variables two years post treatment in sagebrush steppe with an expanding juniper or pinyon −juniper woodland component. Ten locations that characterize common sagebrush steppe sites with an expanding woodland component in the Intermountain West were chosen for analysis. These woodland sites, covering a gradient of juniper development phases, were treated with mechanical (cut and leave) and prescribed fire treatments.

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Prescribed fire policy barriers and opportunities

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This represents the first phase of a project investigating policies that limit managers’ ability to conduct prescribed fire on US Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management (BLM) lands in the 11 Western states. The goals for this phase of our work were to understand the extent to which various policies are limiting prescribed fire programs, strategies to maintain and increase prescribed fire activities, and opportunities for improving policies or policy implementation. To understand the diversity of challenges faced and strategies in use across the West, we conducted a legal analysis of the laws and policies that affect prescribed fire programs on Forest Service and BLM lands (available online at http://ewp.uoregon.edu/publications/working) and approximately 60 interviews with land managers, air regulators, state agency partners, and several NGO partners.

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Restoring sagebrush with ‘Modern Wildfire’

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Decades of overgrazing and wildfire suppression have let juniper trees grow large and spread far across sagebrush country, reducing habitat for sage grouse and other wildlife, and creating conditions for catastrophic wildfires.

In areas where fire is no longer a safe treatment, many land managers are stepping up to fill the role once played by wildfire.

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Air quality impacts from prescribed fire and wildfire compared

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Wildfires are far more likely to result in harmful air quality and public health impacts than prescribed fires because they are unplanned and typically are much larger. Wildfires also last longer, and burn and consume (on average) more vegetation per acre than prescribed fires.

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Photoload sampling technique: Estimating surface fuel loadings

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This report presents a new fuel sampling method, called the photoload sampling technique, to quickly and accurately estimate loadings for six common surface fuel components (1 hr, 10 hr, 100 hr, and 1000 hr downed dead woody, shrub, and herbaceous fuels). This technique involves visually comparing fuel conditions in the field with photoload sequences to estimate fuel loadings. Photoload sequences are a series of downward-looking and close-up oblique photographs depicting a sequence of graduated fuel loadings of synthetic fuelbeds for each of the six fuel components.

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Characterizing fire behavior from laboratory burns

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The original objective of the study was to determine how ignition, smoldering, and flaming are affected by the age of masticated fuels using a combined field and lab approach.

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Mulching treatments promoted understory communities in Colorado forests

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This brief presents the following findings:

  • Overall, mulching treatments in three Colorado conifer forest types promoted denser and more diverse native understory plant communities, particularly over the longer-term.
  • The positive effect of mulching on understory plants was largely driven by the response of herbaceous plants; shrubs showed little response to mulching treatments.
  • Exotic plants tended to be more common in mulched stands than in untreated stands.
  • While understory plants in mulched stands could be heavily suppressed in localized areas where mulch contributed to a deep forest floor, these areas were rare.
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Dormant-season fire inhibits sixweeks fescue, increases forage in shortgrass steppe

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Study results indicate that burning during fescue establishment can prevent proliferation, but burning two years later when fescue had reached peak abundance was ineffective. All three burn treatments that suppressed fescue subsequently enhanced C4 grass production. Researchers suggest that rangeland managers be aware of the potential for sixweeks fescue germination and establishment during warm, wet winters that follow drought years, and consider the use of dormant-season prescribed fire to adaptively reduce negative impacts on forage production.

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