Post-fire Environment & Management
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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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After a catastrophic wildfire, quick action must be taken to minimize social, environmental, and economic devastation. Responsive action requires navigating a complex maze of diverse landowners, community organizations, and numerous local and federal requirements.
Given enough time, forests eventually heal from wildfire. But that healing process can take decades, or even centuries. They simply won’t heal quickly without human intervention. Timely rehabilitation efforts reduce environmental impacts of fire, and can have a positive impact on the community’s social and economic situation in the months and years after the fire. Perhaps most importantly, quick and effective rehabilitation efforts improve public health and safety.
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This study approach revealed interactive, ecological relationships such as novel soil-surface effects on first year establishment of sagebrush across the burned landscape, and identified ‘‘hot spots’’ for recovery. The approach could be expanded across sites and years to provide the information needed to explain past seeding successes or failures, and in designing treatments at the landscape scale.
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Evidence from this analysis shows significant increases in nutrient flux (different forms of nitrogen and phosphorus), major-ion flux and metal concentrations are the most common changes in stream water quality within the first 5 years after fire. Dissolved constituents of ions and metals tended to decrease in concentration 5 years after fire whereas particulate matter concentration continued to increase. Assembling this unique and extensive dataset provided the opportunity to determine the most common post-fire water-quality changes in the large and diverse Western USA. Results from this study could inform studies in other parts of the world, will help parameterise and validate post-fire water-quality models, and assist communities affected by wildfire to anticipate changes to their water quality.
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The science of wildland fire smoke modeling and the tools and information available are dramatically different from what they were 10 years ago. Satellite systems, computing power, social media, and investments in basic research and research delivery such as made by the Joint Fire Sciences Program (JFSP) and NASA are some of the components driving this, as well as the need for information and guidance when widespread smoke impacts occur to large populations such as experienced this past Summer across much of the western US. This webinar provides 1) an overview of the various web-based smoke forecasting systems available in both the US and Canada, and a background of the science and information that goes into these systems, 2) directions to a one-stop-shop of particulate matter air quality monitoring data from both permanent monitoring networks, and monitors deployed during wildfires, 3) an overview of satellite information and products tailored to smoke, 4) directions on where to go to do your own smoke modeling, and finally 5) an overview of the Wildland Fire Air Quality Response Program and the Air Resource Advisors deployed as part of the program to Incident Management Teams.
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The NWCG Smoke Management Guide for Prescribed Fire contains information on prescribed fire smoke management techniques, air quality regulations, smoke monitoring, modeling, communication, public perception of prescribed fire and smoke, climate change, practical meteorological approaches and smoke tools. The primary focus of this document is to serve as the textbook in support of NWCG’s RX410, Smoke Management Techniques course which is required for the position of Prescribed Fire Burn Boss Type 2 (RXB2) The Guide is useful to all who use prescribed fire, from private land owners to federal land managers, with practical tools, and underlying science.
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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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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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This paper presents a case study to demonstrate the ability of the modeling framework to capture the onset and dynamics of a post-fire dust event and then use the modeling framework to estimate particulate matter (PM) emissions from burn scars left by wildfires in U.S. western sagebrush landscapes during 2012. Modeled emissions from 1.2 million ha of burned soil totaled 32.1 Tg of dust as PM10 and 12.8 Tg as PM2.5. Despite the relatively large uncertainties in these estimates and a number of underlying assumptions, these first estimates of annual post-fire dust emissions suggest that post-fire PM emissions could substantially increase current annual PM estimates in the U.S. National Emissions Inventory during high fire activity years. Given the potential for post-fire scars to be a large source of PM, further on-site PM flux measurements are needed to improve emission parameterizations and constrain these first estimates.
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On a steep (30% ± 5%) slope that had been encroached by piñon and juniper trees, we evaluated the effectiveness of slash in reducing runoff and erosion using a portable rainfall simulator (100-yr return period events). Although total runoff did not differ across slash levels, there was marginal evidence of a difference associated with vegetation cover. Sediment yield for plots with low vegetation cover (< 13% cover) was 3.4 times greater than those with high cover, while plots with slash present (≥ 30% cover) experienced 5.4 times less sediment yield than plots without slash. These results extend findings from moderate to steep slopes, highlighting the potential efficacy of slash application for reducing erosion in steep-sloped rangelands.