Fuels & Fuel Treatments
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This report concerns a small facet of the JFSP-funded MASTIDON study in which summaries of the physical and chemical fuel properties of the sampled masticated fuelbeds were presented and the relationships of these properties to fuel age were explored. The scientist documented masticated fuelbed characteristics and correlated these characteristics to fuelbed age for ponderosa pine and mixed conifer stands of the US Rocky Mountains that were masticated using four techniques.
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This report is intended to provide an initial assessment of both the potential effectiveness of fuel breaks and their ecological costs and benefits. To provide this assessment, the report examined prior studies on fuel breaks and other scientific evidence to address three crucial questions:
- How effective are fuel breaks in reducing or slowing the spread of wildfire in arid and semi-arid shrubland ecosystems?
- How do fuel breaks affect sagebrush plant communities?
- What are the effects of fuel breaks on the greater sage-grouse, other sagebrush obligates, and sagebrush-associated wildlife species?
It also provides an overview of recent federal policies and management directives aimed at protecting remaining sagebrush and greater sage-grouse habitat; describe the fuel conditions, fire behavior, and fire trends in the Great Basin; and suggest how scientific inquiry and management actions can improve our understanding of fuel breaks and their effects in sagebrush landscapes.
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Large wildfire incidence has increased in forests throughout the western U.S. following changes in vegetation structure and pattern, along with a changing climate. Given this increase there is great interest in whether fuels treatments and previous wildfire can alter fire severity patterns in large wildfires. The 255,000 acre 2013 Rim Fire created an opportunity to study fuels treatment effects across a large forested landscape in the Sierra Nevada. We assessed the relative influence of previous fuels treatments (including wildfire), fire weather, vegetation and water balance on Rim Fire severity. We did this at three different spatial scales to investigate whether the influences on fire severity changed across scales.
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The World of Wildland Fire vision is to provide and connect fire science educators, trainers, and the public with scientifically solid and peer-reviewed teaching tools and techniques, using state-of-the-art materials, which will be free and accessible to all. This is done to significantly enhance the learning experience.
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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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This study quantifies the effect of seasonal reburns on woody surface fuels, forest floor fuels, and understory tree regeneration abundance in six previously thinned ponderosa pine stands in the southern Blue Mountain Ecoregion of Oregon, USA. Each stand consisted of an unburned control, and four season by reburn treatments: spring 5 yr, spring 15 yr, fall 5 yr, and fall 15 yr. All reburn treatments reduced the forest floor depth compared to those areas not burned (controls). Fall burning, regardless of frequency, generated 1000 hr fuel primarily from overstory mortality resulting from the initial entry burns and subsequent snag and branch fall. But, for the other woody fuel types, reburning had minimal impact, regardless of season or frequency. All reburn treatments reduced regeneration survival, but 5 yr fall reburning was most effective in reducing excessive conifer seedlings. Repeated spring or fall reburns following thinning will reduce forest floor depth but, to achieve low woody fuel loads and control excessive conifer regeneration, it may be necessary to conduct reburns using different timing, such as during drier periods when wildfire ignitions by lightning occurred historically.
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Bureau of Land Management describes the challenge that its staff and a partnership of private landowners, state agencies, conservation groups and more took on when deciding to cooperatively manage a landscape for sage-grouse. What developed is the Bates Hole Juniper Treatment Project.
Visit Interagency Fuels Treatment Decision Support System (IFTDSS) website.
IFTDSS is a web-based software and data integration framework that organizes previously existing and newly developed fire and fuels software applications to make fuels treatment planning and analysis more efficient and effective. You must create an account to begin using this tool.
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Bear grass (Xerophyllum tenax) and California Hazelnut (Corylus cornuta var. californica) are two Nontimber Forest Products (NTFPs) harvested by American Indians for basket weaving in the Pacific Northwest. Good quality leaves and stems for basket weaving are reliant on the periodic burning of these plant species. In this webinar we will discuss how fire and other ecological variables affect the growth and quality of these species, the collaborative management of these plants by American Indians and public agencies, and what implications our findings have for the future management of these resources.
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Spatial wildfire suppression costs regressions have been re-estimated at a more disaggregated level for the nine Geographic Area Coordination Center (GACC’s) regions using five years of data for fires involving National Forests. Results of these revised regression determined that only in the California GACCs did mechanical fuel treatment reduce wildfire suppression costs. However, the results of our second major hypothesis tests that fuel treatments, by making wildfires less damaging and easier to control, may reduce property damages (i.e., structures—barns, out buildings, etc. and residences lost) seems to be confirmed for acres treated with prescribed burning. In four out of the seven GACC regions prescribed burning lowered the number of structures damaged by wildfire. The results for mechanical fuel treatment were more mixed, with a significant negative effect in reducing property damages in two of the three regions with a significant coefficient on mechanical fuel treatment. These results are consistent with past research that suggests that for fuel treatments to reduce wildfire suppression costs it may be necessary to substantially increase the amount of area treated.