Skip to main content

Search by keywords, then use filters to narrow down results by type, year, topic, or ecosystem.

Displaying 1 - 20 of 130

Ecological restoration treatments are being implemented at an increasing rate in ponderosa pine and other dry conifer forests across the western United States, via the USDA Forest Service’s Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration (CFLR) program.…
Author(s): Jennifer S. Briggs, Paula J. Fornwalt, Jonas A. Feinstein
Year Published:

Fire suppression and other factors have resulted in high wildfire risk in the western US, and prescribed burning can be an effective tool for thinning forests and reducing fuels to lessen wildfire risks. However, prescribed burning sometimes fails…
Author(s): Robert Progar, Kathryn H. Hrinkevich, Edward S. Clark, Matthew J. Rinella
Year Published:

Restoration treatments in dry forests of the western US often attempt silvicultural practices to restore the historical characteristics of forest structure and fire behavior. However, it is suggested that a reliance on non-spatial metrics of forest…
Author(s): J. Ziegler, Chad M. Hoffman, Michael A. Battaglia, William E. Mell
Year Published:

Fuel treatments in ponderosa pine forests of the northern Rocky Mountains are commonly used to modify fire behavior, but it is unclear how different fuel treatments impact the subsequent production and distribution of aboveground biomass, especially…
Author(s): Kate A. Clyatt, Christopher R. Keyes, Sharon M. Hood
Year Published:

Fire regimes are ultimately controlled by wildland fuel dynamics over space and time; spatial distributions of fuel influence the size, spread, and intensity of individual fires, while the temporal distribution of fuel deposition influences fire's…
Author(s): Robert E. Keane
Year Published:

Prescribed fire is a primary tool used to restore western forests following more than a century of fire exclusion, reducing fire hazard by removing dead and live fuels (small trees and shrubs).  It is commonly assumed that the reduced forest density…
Author(s): Phillip J. van Mantgem, Anthony C. Caprio, Nathan L. Stevenson, Adrian J. Das
Year Published:

Habitat alterations may improve and expand wildlife habitats, and bolster waning wildlife populations. We used global positioning system (GPS) locations to monitor 38 bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis Shaw) that were translocated to the Seminoe…
Author(s): Justin G. Clapp, Jeffrey L. Beck
Year Published:

Fire frequency in low-elevation coniferous forests in western North America has greatly declined since the late 1800s. In many areas, this has increased tree density and the proportion of shade-tolerant species, reduced resource availability, and…
Author(s): Sharon M. Hood, Stephen P. Baker, Anna Sala
Year Published:

Fuel treatments in riparian areas pose distinct challenges. Riparian areas are protected by administrative regulations, many of which are largely custodial and restrict active management. However, riparian areas have also been affected by fire…
Author(s): Kathleen A. Dwire, Kristen E. Meyer, Sandra E. Ryan, Gregg M. Riegel, Timothy A. Burton
Year Published:

Each year wildfires damage homes, businesses, communities, watersheds, and forests on millions of acres across the U.S. However there are effective ways to reduce the impact of wildfire. A new report, Evaluating the Effectiveness of Wildfire…
Author(s): Alexander M. Evans, Sarah Auerbach, Lara Wood Miller, Rachel Wood, Krys Nystrom, Jonathan Loevner, Amanda Aragon, Matthew Piccarello, Eytan Krasilovsky
Year Published:

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…
Author(s): Jesse K. Kreye, Nolan W. Brewer, Penelope Morgan, J. Morgan Varner, Alistair M. S. Smith, Chad M. Hoffman, Roger D. Ottmar
Year Published:

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…
Author(s): Corey L. Gucker
Year Published:

Sequestration of carbon (C) in forests has the potential to mitigate the effects of climate change by offsetting future emissions of greenhouse gases. However, in dry temperate forests, wildfire is a natural disturbance agent with the potential to…
Author(s): Joseph C. Restaino, David L. Peterson
Year Published:

Designing woody fuel sampling methods that quickly, accurately and efficiently assess biomass at relevant spatial scales requires extensive knowledge of each sampling method's strengths, weaknesses and tradeoffs. In this study, we compared…
Author(s): Robert E. Keane, Kathy L. Gray
Year Published:

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-…
Author(s): Derek J. Churchill, Andrew J. Larson, Matthew C. Dahlgreen, Jerry F. Franklin, Paul F. Hessburg, James A. Lutz
Year Published:

We carried out a systematic review and meta-analysis of the effects of forest thinning and burning treatments on restoring fire behavior attributes in western USA pine forests. Ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa) and Jeffrey pine (Pinus jeffreyi), with…
Author(s): Peter Z. Fule, Joseph E. Crouse, John Paul Roccaforte, Elizabeth L. Kalies
Year Published:

Restoring characteristic fire regimes and forest structures are central objectives of many restoration and fuel reduction projects. Within-stand spatial pattern is a fundamental attribute of forest structure and influences many ecological processes…
Author(s): Andrew J. Larson, Derek J. Churchill
Year Published:

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…
Author(s): James D. McIver, Karen Erickson, Andrew P. Youngblood
Year Published:

The current conditions of many seasonally dry forests in the western and southern United States, especially those that once experienced low- to moderate-intensity fire regimes, leave them uncharacteristically susceptible to high-severity wildfire.…
Author(s): Scott L. Stephens, James D. McIver, Ralph E. Boerner, Christopher J. Fettig, Joseph B. Fontaine, Bruce R. Hartsough, Patricia L. Kennedy, Dylan W. Schwilk
Year Published:

Wildland fuels are important to fire managers because they can be manipulated to achieve management goals, such as restoring ecosystems, decreasing fire intensity, minimizing plant mortality, and reducing erosion. However, it is difficult to…
Author(s): Robert E. Keane, Kathy L. Gray, Valentina Bacciu, Signe B. Leirfallom
Year Published: