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Recognizing the involvement of various stakeholders in managing pests, diseases, and forest disturbances is critical for managing forest health. Although there has been substantial focus on the biological and ecological aspects of forest health in the peer-reviewed literature, there is a significant gap in understanding the human dimensions of forest health, especially from the perspective of foresters and loggers. These two groups—foresters, who write silvicultural prescriptions, and loggers, who implement them—are vital but understudied participants.
AuthorsNorthern Research Station. USDA Forest ServiceSourceRooted in Research Issue 29, April 2024. Madison, WI: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Northern Research Station. 2 p.Year2024 -
People love to live near forests, lakes, open space, and scenic beauty. These natural settings draw people to build homes in areas classified as the wildland-urban interface (WUI): spaces where human development meets the natural world. Although houses in the WUI are built on private land, they are often close to national forests, within inholdings (patches of private land within national forests), or close to other public land. Tracking and understanding WUI growth therefore has implications for forest health and management across public and private lands.
AuthorsNorthern Research Station. USDA Forest ServiceSourceRooted in Research Issue 28, April 2024. Madison, WI: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Northern Research Station. 2 p.Year2024 -
Monitoring fuel loads and treatment effects are critical in planning and evaluating prescribed fire and wildfire operations, but gathering data is difficult at management scales. Monitoring data allow managers to quantify fuel hazards, run fire behavior simulations that inform how prescribed fires and wildfires may progress under different weather and forests, and evaluate ecological impacts of different management decisions. New monitoring approaches with terrestrial laser scanning (TLS) developed by Northern Research Station scientists and partners are revolutionizing vegetation monitoring a...
AuthorsNorthern Research Station. USDA Forest ServiceSourceRooted in Research Issue 27, April 2024. Madison, WI: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Northern Research Station. 7 p.Year2024 -
Timber was a significant economic driver in many rural communities of the Pacific Northwest throughout much of the 20th century. However, the number of timber-related jobs began declining in the 1980s, leading to hardship in many timber-dependent communities. Since then, some state and local public officials have become interested in promoting forest-based tourism to boost local economies. Jeff Kline, a research forester and economist with the USDA Forest Service Pacific Northwest Research Station, and Ian Munanura, a tourism expert and associate professor at Oregon State University, surveyed...
AuthorsJohn Kirkland, Jeff Kline, Ian MunanuraKeywordsSourceScience Findings 265. Portland, OR: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station. 6 p.Year2024 -
Background: Sagebrush ecosystems are experiencing increases in wildfire extent and severity. Most research on vegetation treatments that reduce fuels and fire risk has been short term (2-3 years) and focused on ecological responses. We review causes of altered fire regimes and summarize literature on the longer-term effects of treatments that modify (1) shrub fuels, (2) pinyon and juniper canopy fuels, and (3) fine herbaceous fuels. We describe treatment effects on fuels, fire behavior, ecological resilience, and resistance to invasive annual grasses.Results: Our review revealed tradeoffs in w...
AuthorsJeanne C. Chambers, Eva K. Strand, Lisa M. Ellsworth, Claire M. Tortorelli, Alexandra K. Urza, Michele R. Crist, Richard F. Miller, Matthew C. Reeves, Karen C. Short, Claire L. WilliamsKeywordsSourceFire Ecology. 20: 32.Year2024 -
Background: Accurate estimates of available live crown fuel loads are critical for understanding potential wildland fire behavior. Existing crown fire behavior models assume that available crown fuels are limited to all tree foliage and half of the fine branches less than 6 mm in diameter (1 h fuel). They also assume that this relationship is independent of the branchwood moisture content. Despite their widespread use, these assumptions have never been tested, and our understanding of the physiochemical properties that govern live crown flammability and consumption remains limited. To test the...
AuthorsElliott T. Conrad, W. Matt Jolly, Tegan P. Brown, Samuel C. HillmanKeywordsSourceFire Ecology. 20: 28.Year2024 -
Our objective in the present study is to provide basic insights into the coupling between external-gas and solid biomass vegetation processes that control the dynamics of flame spread in wildland fire problems. We focus on a modeling approach that resolves processes occurring at vegetation and flame scales, i.e., the formation of flammable vapors due to the thermal degradation of the solid biomass, the subsequent combustion in ambient air, the thermal feedback to the biomass through radiative and convective heat transfer, and the possible transition from flaming combustion (taking place outsid...
AuthorsMohamed Mohsen Ahmed, Arnaud Trouvé, Jason Forthofer, Mark FinneyKeywordsSourceCombustion and Flame. 262: 113370.Year2024 -
Increased understanding of how mechanical thinning, prescribed burning, and wildfire affect subsequent wildfire severity is urgently needed as people and forests face a growing wildfire crisis. In response, we reviewed scientific literature for the US West and completed a meta-analysis that answered three questions: (1) How much do treatments reduce wildfire severity within treated areas? (2) How do the effects vary with treatment type, treatment age, and forest type? (3) How does fire weather moderate the effects of treatments? We found overwhelming evidence that mechanical thinning with pres...
AuthorsKimberley T. Davis, Jamie Peeler, Joseph Fargione, Ryan D. Haugo, Kerry L. Metlen, Marcos D. Robles, Travis WoolleyKeywordsSourceForest Ecology and Management. 561: 121885.Year2024 -
Public lands are an important source of outdoor recreation opportunities. These opportunities provide a variety of public benefits, including promoting physical and mental well-being, contributing to local economies, and raising conservation awareness. In response to current and potential demand, it is ever more important to meet and anticipate infrastructure and user needs. With aging infrastructure (e.g., trails, access points, parking lots), managers face the need to maintain existing, and establish new, recreation opportunities to meet user expectations and contribute to positive percepti...
AuthorsAshley E. Askew, Eric M. White, Gary T. GreenKeywordsSourceJournal of Park and Recreation Administration. 42(1): 21-41.Year2024 -
Accurate measurements of particle diameter are necessary for quantitative characterization of key aerosol properties including the Cunningham slip correction factor, charging probability, diffusion coefficient, coagulation coefficient, and optical properties. In this study, we use four techniques to measure the diameter of nominal 100 nm reference spheres having a distributional standard deviation of less than 2 nm. The instruments used are a differential mobility analyzer (DMA), atomic force microscopy (AFM), scanning electron microscopy (SEM), and an electrical-gravitational aerosol balance ...
AuthorsGeorge W. Mulholland, Kaleb J. Duelge, Vincent A. Hackley, Natalia Farkas, John A. Kramar, Michael R. Zachariah, Keiji Takahata, Hiromu Sakurai, Kensei EharaKeywordsSourceAerosol Science and TechnologyYear2024