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The prevailing paradigm in the western U.S. is that the increase in stand-replacing wildfires in historically frequent-fire dry forests is due to unnatural fuel loads that have resulted from management activities including fire suppression, logging…
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Variable-retention harvesting in lodgepole pine offers an alternative to conventional, even-aged management. This harvesting technique promotes structural complexity and age-class diversity in residual stands and promotes resilience to disturbance.…
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Mixed conifer forests of western North America are challenging for fire management, as historical fire regimes were highly variable in severity, timing, and spatial extent. Complex fire histories combined with site factors and other disturbances,…
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The implementation of US federal forest restoration programs on national forests is a complex process that requires balancing diverse socioecological goals with project economics. Despite both the large geographic scope and substantial investments…
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Forests that historically burned in mixed-severity fire regimes prove difficult to manage, especially when they border homes and prized recreation areas. This management challenge was the focus of the Fuels Reduction and Restoration in Mixed-Conifer…
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With increasing public demand for more intensive biomass utilization from forests, the concerns over adverse impacts on productivity by nutrient depletion are increasing. We remeasured the 1974 site of the Forest Residues Utilization Research and…
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The scientific basis for restoration of fire-excluded western larch/mixed-conifer forests is not as well developed as that for dry fire-frequent forests. We compared the effects of wildfire and restoration (combined thinning and prescribed fire) in…
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Several mechanical approaches to managing vegetation fuels hold promise when applied to the dry mixed conifer forests in the western United States. These are most useful to treat surface, ladder, and crown fuels. There are a variety of techniques to…
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Reference conditions describe attributes of ecosystem structure, composition, and function and are used to inform ecological restoration efforts. Reference condition information on tree spatial patterns that occurred prior to wide-spread fire…
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Fuels treatments in ponderosa pine - Visits to the Boise National Forest and Boise Basin Exp. Forest
Terrie Jain, Research Forester with the USFS Rocky Mountain Research Station, together with foresters, and fire and wildlife managers from the Boise National Forest led a tour of fuels treatments in dry conifer forests around Idaho City, Idaho. Site…
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Mick Harrington and Steve Arno, retired research foresters with the USFS Rocky Mountain Research Station, took participants of the May 2014 Large Wildland Fires Conference through a 300-year-old stand of ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa) and western…
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Implementing fuel treatments in every place where it could be beneficial to do so is impractical and not cost effective under any plausible specification of objectives. Only some of the many possible kinds of treatments will be effective in any…
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Mastication is an increasingly common fuels treatment that redistributes 'ladder' fuels to the forest floor to reduce vertical fuel continuity, crown fire potential, and fireline intensity, but fuel models do not exist for predicting fire…
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Short- and medium-term evaluation of how fuel treatments are working is the only way to know if the hundreds of activities on the ground are adding up to the goals of more resilient landscapes and increased safety of people and property. Monitoring…
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Fire has had a profound historical role in shaping dry mixed conifer forests in the western United States. However, the uncertainty and complexity of prescribed fires raises the question "Is fire always the best option for treating fuels?" The…
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Stand-level spatial pattern influences key aspects of resilience and ecosystem function such as disturbance behavior, regeneration, snow retention, and habitat quality in frequent-fire pine and mixed-conifer forests. Reference sites, from both pre-…
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Thinning is a common silvicultural treatment being widely used to restore different types of overstocked forest stands in western U.S. because of its effect on changing fire behavior. Typically, thinning is applied at the stand level using…
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Principal findings of the National Fire and Fire Surrogate (FFS) study are presented in an annotated bibliography and summarized in tabular form by site, discipline (ecosystem component), treatment type, and major theme. Composed of 12 sites, the…
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Historical fire suppression efforts have led to the alteration of forest structure and fuel conditions across the United States. Correspondingly, managers are now faced with higher fuel loads and denser vegetation as well as growing forest…
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A century of fire suppression has created unnaturally dense stands in many western North American forests, and silviculture treatments are being increasingly used to reduce fuels to mitigate wildfire hazards and manage insect infestations. Thinning…
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