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Displaying 1 - 20 of 99

After the Valley Complex Fire burned 86 000 ha in western Montana in 2000, two studies were conducted to determine the effectiveness of contour-felled log, straw wattle, and hand-dug contour trench erosion barriers in mitigating postfire runoff and…
Author(s): Peter R. Robichaud, Frederick B. Pierson, Robert E. Brown, Joseph W. Wagenbrenner
Year Published:

Our objective was to infer the climate drivers of regionally synchronous fire years in dry forests of the U.S. northern Rockies in Idaho and western Montana. During our analysis period (1650-1900), we reconstructed fires from 9245 fire scars on 576…
Author(s): Emily K. Heyerdahl, Penelope Morgan, James P. Riser
Year Published:

Bromus tectorum (cheatgrass) is an invasive annual that occupies perennial grass and shrub communities throughout the western United States. Bronus tectorum exhibits an intriguing spatio-temporal pattern of invasion in low elevation ponderosa pine…
Author(s): Michael J. Gundale, Steve Sutherland, Thomas H. DeLuca
Year Published:

As a global citizen, you know that people around the world share similar environmental concerns. The changing climate is one concern shared by people everywhere. Some Forest Service scientists are interested in studying climate change and its…
Author(s): Barbara McDonald, Vicki Arthur, Jessica Nickelsen, Michelle Andrews
Year Published:

Our focus is on the Pacific Northwest and Intermountain Region including the Great Basin, Columbia Plateau, Colorado Plateau, and surrounding areas. The climate of this large, arid to semiarid region is defined by generally low and highly variable…
Author(s): Jeanne C. Chambers, Michael L. Pellant
Year Published:

Much interest lies in long-term recovery rates of sagebrush communities after fire in the western United States, as sagebrush communities comprise millions of hectares of rangelands and are an important wildlife habitat. Little is known about…
Author(s): Temuulen T. Sankey, Corey A. Moffet, Keith T. Weber
Year Published:

This paper integrates a spatial fire-behavior model and a stochastic dynamic-optimization model to determine the optimal spatial pattern of fuel management and timber harvest. Each year's fire season causes the loss of forest values and lives…
Author(s): Masashi Konoshima, Claire A. Montgomery, Heidi J. Albers, Jeffrey L. Arthur
Year Published:

Bark beetle-caused tree mortality in conifer forests affects the quantity and quality of forest fuels and has long been assumed to increase fire hazard and potential fire behavior. In reality, bark beetles, and their effects on fuel accumulation,…
Author(s): Michael J. Jenkins, Elizabeth G. Hebertson, Wesley G. Page, C. Arik Jorgensen
Year Published:

We report on the recent growth of upland aspen (Populus tremuloides Michx.) thickets in northwestern Yellowstone National Park, USA following wolf (Canis lupus L.) reintroduction in 1995. We compared aspen growth patterns in an area burned by the…
Author(s): Joshua S. Halofsky, William J. Ripple, Robert L. Beschta
Year Published:

Thinning and thinning followed by prescribed fire are common management practices intended to restore historic conditions in low-elevation ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa Dougl. ex P. & C. Laws.) forests of the northern Rocky Mountains. While…
Author(s): Gregory D. Peters, Anna Sala
Year Published:

Many scientists and forest land managers concur that past fire suppression, grazing, and timber harvesting practices have created unnatural and unhealthy conditions in the dry, ponderosa pine forests of the western United States. Specifically, such…
Author(s): Richard L. Hutto
Year Published:

Paleoecological reconstructions from two lakes in the U.S. northern Rocky Mountain region of Idaho and Montana revealed the presence of bark beetle elytra and head capsules (cf. Dendroctonus spp., most likely D. ponderosae, mountain pine beetle).…
Author(s): Andrea R. Brunelle, Gerald E. Rehfeldt, Barbara J. Bentz, A. Steven Munson
Year Published:

Alluvial fan deposits are widespread and preserve millennial-length records of fire. We used these records to examine changes in fire regimes over the last 2000 years in Yellowstone National Park mixed-conifer forests and drier central Idaho…
Author(s): Jennifer L. Pierce, Grant A. Meyer
Year Published:

Pollen and high-resolution charcoal records from the north-western USA provide an opportunity to examine the linkages among fire, climate, and fuels on multiple temporal and spatial scales. The data suggest that general charcoal levels were low in…
Author(s): Cathy L. Whitlock, Jennifer R. Marlon, Christy E. Briles, Andrea R. Brunelle, Colin J. Long, Patrick J. Bartlein
Year Published:

The temporal and spatial structure of 332 404 daily fire-start records from the western United States for the period 1986 through 1996 is illustrated using several complimentary visualisation techniques. We supplement maps and time series plots with…
Author(s): Patrick J. Bartlein, Steven W. Hostetler, Sarah L. Shafer, J. O. Holman, Allen M. Solomon
Year Published:

Various methods are available to reduce post-wildfire erosion, but there is limited quantitative information on the relative effectiveness of these techniques. We used rainfall simulations to compare the erosion and runoff rates from adjacent 0.5-m2…
Author(s): Amy H. Groen, Scott W. Woods
Year Published:

Ash formed by the combustion of vegetation and the litter and duff layers may affect runoff and erosion rates in the period immediately following wildfires, but only a handful of studies have specifically measured its effect. Approximately 1 month…
Author(s): Scott W. Woods, Victoria N. Balfour
Year Published:

We characterised the remarkable heterogeneity following the large, severe fires of 1988 in Yellowstone National Park (YNP), in the northern Rocky Mountains, Wyoming, USA, by focussing on spatial variation in post-fire structure, composition and…
Author(s): Tania L. Schoennagel, Erica A. H. Smithwick, Monica G. Turner
Year Published:

Many natural resource agencies and organizations recognize the importance of fuel treatments as tools for reducing fire hazards and restoring ecosystems. However, there continues to be confusion and misconception about fuel treatments and their…
Author(s): Elizabeth D. Reinhardt, Robert E. Keane, David E. Calkin, Jack D. Cohen
Year Published: