Keyword: fire ecology

Influences of previous wildfires on change, resistance, and resilience to reburning in a montane southwestern landscape

Land use legacies and climate have altered fire regimes across montane forests of much of the southwestern US (Allen and others 2002), and several recent wildfires have been extremely large and severe (Dennison and others 2014).

Enhancing scientist-manager relationships to foster ecosystem resilience

This extended abstract describes the preliminary results of a study that sought to determine the most effective ways to develop and apply scientific information about resilience for on-the-ground management. Interviews were conducted with scientists, managers, and other stakeholders in the Southwest U.S. following a workshop on ecosystem resilience held in Tucson, Arizona in February 2014.

Fuels treatments in the 21st century - do they matter?

Fuels treatments have long mattered, and are expected to into the future.

What determines area burned in large landscapes? Insights from a decade of comparative landscape-fire modelling

Understanding what determines area burned in large landscapes is critical for informing wildland fire management in fire-prone environments and for representing fire activity in Dynamic Global Vegetation Models.

Vegetation clearance distances to prevent wildland fire caused damage to telecommunication and power transmission infrastructure (2)

Towers and poles supporting power transmission and telecommunication lines have collapsed due to heating from wildland fires. Such occurrences have led to interruptions in power or communication in large municipal areas with associated social and political implications as well as increased immediate danger to humans.

Contemporary patterns of burn severity heterogeneity from fires in the Northwestern U.S.

Historically, frequent, low-severity fires maintained opengrown structure of dry ponderosa pine forests (Hessburg and Agee 2003). Thus, an open forest structure may be a reasonable template for ecological restoration in those particular forest types (Allen and others 2002).

Practical tools for assessing potential crown fire behavior and canopy fuel characteristics

This presentation recapitulates the main points made at a technology and information transfer workshop held in advance of the conference that provided overviews of two software applications, developed by the authors, for use in assessing crown fire behavior and canopy fuel characteristics. These are the Crown Fire Initiation and Spread (CFIS) software system and the Canopy Fuel Stratum Characteristics Calculator.

Sensitivity to spatial and temporal scale and fire regime inputs in deriving fire regime condition class

The Fire Regime Condition Class (FRCC) is a composite departure measure that compares current vegetation structure and fire regime to historical reference conditions. FRCC is computed as the average of: 1) Vegetation departure (VDEP) and 2) Regime (frequency and severity) departure (RDEP). In addition to the FRCC rating, the Vegetation Condition Class (VCC) and Regime Condition Class (RCC) are produced to indicate the status of each.

Reconsidering wildland fire use: Perspectives from the Northern Rockies

The idea that more wildfires should be allowed to burn for resource benefit is widespread in federal fire management in the United States and the research community is heavily invested in strategies, tools, data, and information to provide decision-making support for these fires.

Assessing predictive services' 7-day fire potential outlook

The Predictive Services program was created under the National Wildfire Coordinating Group in 2001 to address the need for long- and short-term decision support information for fire managers and operations personnel. The primary mission of Predictive Services is to integrate fire weather, fire danger, and resource availability to enable strategic fire suppression resource allocation and prioritization.