Bret W. Butler, PhD

Treesearch Publications

• David R. Weise, Thomas H. Fletcher, Timothy J. Johnson, Wei Min Hao, Mark A. Dietenberger, Marko Princevac, Bret W. Butler, Sara S. McAllister, Joseph J. O'Brien, E. Louise Loudermilk, Roger D. Ottmar, Andrew T. Hudak, Akira Kato, Babak Shotorban, Shankar Mahalingam, Tanya L. Myers, Javier Palarea-Albaladejo, Stephen P. Baker. 2024. Comparing gas composition from fast pyrolysis of live foliage measured in bench-scale and fire-scale experiments
• Michael J. Campbell, Philip E. Dennison, Matthew P. Thompson, Bret W. Butler. 2022. Assessing potential safety zone suitability using a new online mapping tool
• Matthew B. Dickinson, Cyle E. Wold, Bret W. Butler, Robert L. Kremens, Daniel Jimenez, Paul A. Sopko, Joseph J. O'Brien. 2021. The Wildland Fire Heat Budget—Using Bi-Directional Probes to Measure Sensible Heat Flux and Energy in Surface Fires
• Mario Miguel Valero, Steven Verstockt, Bret W. Butler, Daniel Jimenez, Oriol Rios, Christian Mata, LLoyd Queen, Elsa Pastor, Eulalia Planas. 2021. Thermal infrared video stabilization for aerial monitoring of active wildfires
• Nicholas Skowronski, Bret W. Butler, J. Kevin Hiers, Joseph J. O'Brien, J. Morgan. Varner. 2021. The Prescribed Fire Science Consortium
• Tyler R. Hudson, Ryan B. Bray, David L. Blunck, Wesley Page, Bret W. Butler. 2020. Effects of fuel morphology on ember generation characteristics at the tree scale
• Daniel A. Cowan, Wesley Page, Bret W. Butler, David L. Blunck. 2020. Effects of fuel characteristics on horizontal spread rate and ground surface temperatures of smouldering duff
• Patrick R. Sullivan, Michael J. Campbell, Philip E. Dennison, Simon C. Brewer, Bret W. Butler. 2020. Modeling wildland firefighter travel rates by terrain slope: Results from GPS-tracking of Type 1 crew movement
• J. Kevin Hiers, Joseph J. O'Brien, J. Morgan Varner, Bret W. Butler, Matthew B. Dickinson, James Furman, Michael R. Gallagher, David Godwin, Scott Goodrick, Sharon M. Hood, Andrew T. Hudak, Leda N. Kobziar, Rodman Linn, E. Louise Loudermilk, Sarah M. McCaffrey, Kevin Robertson, Eric M. Rowell, Nicholas Skowronski, Adam C. Watts, Kara Yedinak. 2020. Prescribed fire science: the case for a refined research agenda
• William E. Mell, J. Torres-Arenas, Bret W. Butler, X. Sanchez-Monroy. 2019. Fire spread upslope: Numerical simulation of laboratory experiments
• Bret W. Butler, Steve Quarles, Christine Standohar-Alfano, Murray Morrison, Daniel Jimenez, Paul A. Sopko, Cyle Wold, Larry S. Bradshaw, Loren Atwood, Justin Landon, Joseph O’Brien, Benjamin Hornsby, Natalie S. Wagenbrenner, Wesley Page. 2019. Exploring fire response to high wind speeds: Fire rate of spread, energy release and flame residence time from fires burned in pine needle beds under winds up to 27 m s-1
• Wesley Page, Bret W. Butler. 2019. Assessing wildland firefighter entrapment
• Wesley Page, Patrick Freeborn, Bret W. Butler, W. Matt Jolly. 2019. A classification of US wildland firefighter entrapments based on coincident fuels, weather, and topography
• Natalie S. Wagenbrenner, Jason M. Forthofer, Wesley Page, Bret W. Butler. 2019. Development and evaluation of a Reynolds-Averaged Navier-Stokes solver in WindNinja for operational wildland fire applications
• W. Matt Jolly, Patrick Freeborn, Wesley Page, Bret W. Butler. 2019. Severe Fire Danger Index: A forecastable metric to inform firefighter and community wildfire risk management
• Wesley Page, Patrick Freeborn, Bret W. Butler, W. Matt Jolly. 2019. A review of US wildland firefighter entrapments: Trends, important environmental factors and research needs
• Michael J. Campbell, Philip E. Dennison, Bret W. Butler, Wesley Page. 2019. Using crowdsourced fitness tracker data to model the relationship between slope and travel rates
• Craig B. Clements, Adam K. Kochanski, Daisuke Seto, Braniff Davis, Christopher Camacho, Neil P. Lareau, Jonathan Contezac, Joseph Restaino, Warren E. E. Heilman, Steven K. Krueger, Bret W. Butler, Roger D. Ottmar, Robert Vihnanek, James Flynn, Jean-Baptiste Filippi, Toussaint Barboni, Dianne E. Hall, Jan Mandel, Mary Ann Jenkins, Joseph J. O'Brien, Ben Hornsby, Casey Teske. 2019. The FireFlux II experiment: a model-guided field experiment to improve understanding of fire-atmosphere interactions and fire spread
• Wesley Page, Natalie S. Wagenbrenner, Bret W. Butler, David L. Blunck. 2019. An analysis of spotting distances during the 2017 fire season in the Northern Rockies, USA
• Matthew B. Dickinson, Bret W. Butler, Andrew T. Hudak, Benjamin C. Bright, Robert L. Kremens, Carine Klauberg. 2019. Inferring energy incident on sensors in low-intensity surface fires from remotely sensed radiation and using it to predict tree stem injury
• Joseph J. O'Brien, J. K. Hiers, J. M. Varner, C. M. Hoffman, Matthew B. Dickinson, S. T. Michaletz, E. Louise Loudermilk, Bret W. Butler. 2018. Advances in Mechanistic Approaches to Quantifying Biophysical Fire Effects
• David R. Weise, Thomas H. Fletcher, Timothy J. Johnson, WeiMin M. Hao, Mark A. Dietenberger, Marko Princevac, Bret W. Butler, Sara S. McAllister, Joseph J. O'Brien, E. Louise Loudermilk, Roger D. Ottmar, Andrew T. Hudak, Akira Kato, Babak Shotorban, Shankar Mahalingam, William E. Mell. 2018. A project to measure and model pyrolysis to improve prediction of prescribed fire behavior
• Wesley Page, Natalie S. Wagenbrenner, Bret W. Butler, Jason M. Forthofer, Chris Gibson. 2018. An evaluation of NDFD weather forecasts for wildland fire behavior prediction
• Wesley Page, Bret W. Butler. 2018. Fuel and topographic influences on wildland firefighter burnover fatalities in Southern California
• Natalie S. Wagenbrenner, Jason M. Forthofer, Chris Gibson, Abby Indreland, Brian K. Lamb, Bret W. Butler. 2018. Observations and predictability of gap winds in the Salmon River Canyon of Central Idaho, USA
• Michael J. Campbell, Philip E. Dennison, Andrew T. Hudak, Lucy M. Parham, Bret W. Butler. 2018. Quantifying understory vegetation density using small-footprint airborne lidar
• Andrew T. Hudak, Patrick Freeborn, Sarah A. Lewis, Sharon M. Hood, Helen Y. Smith, Colin C. Hardy, Robert J. Kremens, Bret W. Butler, Casey Teske, Bob G. Tissell, Lloyd P. Queen, Bryce L. Nordgren, Benjamin C. Bright, Penelope Morgan, Philip J. Riggan, Lee Macholz, Leigh B. Lentile, James P. Riddering, Edward E. Mathews. 2018. The Cooney Ridge Fire Experiment: An early operation to relate pre-, active, and post-fire field and remotely sensed measurements
• Wesley Page, Bret W. Butler. 2017. An empirically based approach to defining wildland firefighter safety and survival zone separation distances
• Michael J. Campbell, Philip E. Dennison, Bret W. Butler. 2017. A LiDAR-based analysis of the effects of slope, vegetation density, and ground surface roughness on travel rates for wildland firefighter escape route mapping
• Pamela G. Sikkink, Terrie B. Jain, James Reardon, Faith Heinsch, Robert E. Keane, Bret W. Butler, L. Scott Baggett. 2017. Effect of particle aging on chemical characteristics, smoldering, and fire behavior in mixed-conifer masticated fuel
• Theodore Ted Adams, Bret W. Butler, Sara H. Brown, Vita Wright, Anne E. Black. 2017. Bridging the divide between fire safety research and fighting fire safely: How do we convey research innovation to contribute more effectively to wildland firefighter safety?
• Bret W. Butler, C. Teske, Dan M. Jimenez, Joseph J. O'Brien, Paul A. Sopko, Cyle E. Wold, Mark G. Vosburgh, Ben Hornsby, E. Louise Loudermilk. 2016. Observations of energy transport and rate of spreads from low-intensity fires in longleaf pine habitat-RxCADRE 2012
• Natalie S. Wagenbrenner, Jason M. Forthofer, Brian K. Lamb, Kyle S. Shannon, Bret W. Butler. 2016. Downscaling surface wind predictions from numerical weather prediction models in complex terrain with a mass-consistent wind model
• Michael J. Campbell, Philip E. Dennison, Bret W. Butler. 2016. Safe separation distance score: A new metric for evaluating wildland firefighter safety zones using lidar
• D. Finn, B. Reese, Bret W. Butler, Natalie S. Wagenbrenner, K. L. Clawson, J. Rich, E. Russell, Z. Gao, H. Liu. 2016. Evidence for gap flows in the Birch Creek Valley, Idaho
• Craig B. Clements, Neil P. Lareau, Daisuke Seto, Jonathan Contezac, Braniff Davis, Casey Teske, Thomas J. Zajkowski, Andrew T. Hudak, Benjamin C. Bright, Matthew B. Dickinson, Bret W. Butler, Daniel Jimenez, J. Kevin Hiers. 2016. Fire weather conditions and fire-atmosphere interactions observed during low-intensity prescribed fires - RxCADRE 2012
• Roger D. Ottmar, J. Kevin Hiers, Bret W. Butler, Craig B. Clements, Matthew B. Dickinson, Andrew T. Hudak, Joseph J. O'Brien, Brian Potter, Eric M. Rowell, Tara Strand, Thomas J. Zajkowski. 2016. Measurements, datasets and preliminary results from the RxCADRE project-2008, 2011 and 2012
• Bret W. Butler, Natalie S. Wagenbrenner, Jason M. Forthofer, B. K. Lamb, Kyle S. Shannon, D. Finn, R. M. Eckman, K. Clawson, Larry S. Bradshaw, Paul A. Sopko, S. Beard, Dan M. Jimenez, Cyle E. Wold, Mark G. Vosburgh. 2015. High-resolution observations of the near-surface wind field over an isolated mountain and in a steep river canyon
• Eric Mueller, Nicholas Skowronski, Ken Clark, Robert Kremens, Michael R. Gallagher, Jan Thomas, Mohamad El Houssami, Alexander Filkod, Bret W. Butler, John Hom, William E. Mell, Albert Simeoni. 2015. Initial results from a field experiment to support the assessment of fuel treatment effectiveness in reducing wildfire intensity and spread rate
• Bret W. Butler, T. Wallace, J. Hogge. 2015. Vegetation clearance distances to prevent wildland fire caused damage to telecommunication and power transmission infrastructure (2)
• Bret W. Butler, Russell A. Parsons, William Mell. 2015. Recent findings relating to firefighter safety zones
• Bret W. Butler, J. Webb, J. Hogge, T. Wallace. 2015. Vegetation clearance distances to prevent wildland fire caused damage to telecommunication and power transmission infrastructure
• Jason M. Forthofer, Bret W. Butler, Charles W. McHugh, Mark A. Finney, Larry S. Bradshaw, Richard D. Stratton, Kyle S. Shannon, Natalie S. Wagenbrenner. 2014. A comparison of three approaches for simulating fine-scale surface winds in support of wildland fire management. Part II. An exploratory study of the effect of simulated winds on fire growth simulations
• Jason M. Forthofer, Bret W. Butler, Natalie S. Wagenbrenner. 2014. A comparison of three approaches for simulating fine-scale surface winds in support of wildland fire management: Part I. Model formulation and comparison against measurements
• Bret W. Butler. 2014. Wildland firefighter safety zones: A review of past science and summary of future needs
• Eric Mueller, Nicholas Skowronski, Albert Simeoni, Kenneth Clark, Robert Kremens, William E. Mell, Michael R. Gallagher, Jan Thomas, Alexander Filkov, Mohamad El Houssami, John Hom, Bret W. Butler. 2014. Fuel treatment effectiveness in reducing fire intensity and spread rate - An experimental overview
• Bret W. Butler, Roger D. Ottmar, T.S. Rupp, R. Jandt, E. Miller, K. Howard, R. Schmoll, S. Theisen, R.E. Vihnanek, D. Jimenez. 2013. Quantifying the effect of fuel reduction treatments on fire behavior in boreal forests
• Russell A. Parsons, J. Morgan Varner, Bret W. Butler, Kevin C. Ryan, Corey Gucker, W. Matt Jolly. 2012. Do mountain pine beetle outbreaks change the probability of active crown fire in lodgepole pine forests?
• David N. Wear, Linda A. Joyce, Bret W. Butler, Cassandra Johnson Gaither, Susan Stewart, David J. Nowak. 2012. Climate change, human communities, and forests in rural, urban, and wildland-urban interface environments
• David Frankman, Brent W. Webb, Bret W. Butler, Daniel Jimenez, Jason M. Forthofer, Paul A. Sopko, Kyle S. Shannon, J. Kevin Hiers, Roger D. Ottmar. 2012. Measurements of convective and radiative heating in wildland fires
• David Frankman, Brent W. Webb, Bret W. Butler, Daniel Jimenez, Michael G. Harrington. 2012. The effect of sampling rate on interpretation of the temporal characteristics of radiative and convective heating in wildland flames
• Ralph M. Nelson, Bret W. Butler, David R. Weise. 2012. Entrainment regimes and flame characteristics of wildland fires
• Miguel G. Cruz, Bret W. Butler, Domingos X. Viegas, Pedro Palheiro. 2011. Characterization of flame radiosity in shrubland fires
• Jason M. Forthofer, K. Shannon, Bret W. Butler. 2010. Initialization of high resolution surface wind simulations using NWS gridded data
• Jason M. Forthofer, Bret W. Butler. 2010. Large scale fire whirls: Can their formation be predicted?
• Bret W. Butler, Jason M. Forthofer, K. Shannon, D. Jimenez, D. Frankman. 2010. The effect of terrain slope on firefighter safety zone effectiveness
• Bret W. Butler, D. Jimenez, Jason M. Forthofer, Paul A. Sopko, K. Shannon, Jim J. Reardon. 2010. In-situ characterization of wildland fire behavior
• Bret W. Butler, D. Jimenez, Jason M. Forthofer, K. Shannon, Paul A. Sopko. 2010. A portable system for characterizing wildland fire behavior
• Bret W. Butler, Jason M. Forthofer. 2010. Firefighter Safety Zone: The effect of terrain slope of separation distance
• Bret W. Butler. 2010. Characterization of convective heating in full scale wildland fires
• Bret W. Butler, Matthew B. Dickinson. 2010. Tree injury and mortality in fires: developing process-based models
• David Frankman, Brent W. Webb, Bret W. Butler, Don J. Latham. 2010. Fine fuel heating by radiant flux
• Bret W. Butler. 2009. Efforts to update firefighter safety zone guidelines
• Jason M. Forthofer, Kyle Shannon, Bret W. Butler. 2009. Simulating diurnally driven slope winds with WindNinja
• Dan M. Jimenez, Bret W. Butler, K. Hiers, Roger D. Ottmar, Matthew B. Dickinson, R. Kremens, Joseph J. O'Brien, Andrew T. Hudak, C. Clements. 2009. Rx-CADRE (Prescribed Fire Combustion-Atmospheric Dynamics Research Experiments) collaborative research in the core fire sciences
• Brent M. Pickett, Carl Isackson, Rebecca Wunder, Thomas H. Fletcher, Bret W. Butler, David R. Weise. 2009. Flame interactions and burning characteristics of two live leaf samples
• D. Frankman, B. W. Webb, Bret W. Butler. 2008. Influence of absorption by environmental water vapor on radiation transfer in wildland fires
• Dan M. Jimenez, Jason M. Forthofer, James Reardon, Bret W. Butler. 2007. Fire behavior sensor package remote trigger design
• Jason M. Forthofer, Bret W. Butler. 2007. Differences in simulated fire spread over Askervein Hill using two advanced wind models and a traditional uniform wind field
• David Frankman, Brent W. Webb, Bret W. Butler. 2007. Influence of radiation absorption by environmental water vapor on radiation transfer in wildland fires
• Wayne A. Cook, Bret W. Butler. 2007. Introduction-2nd Fire Behavior and Fuels Conference: The fire environment-innovations, management, and policy
• Bret W. Butler, Wayne A. Cook. 2007. The fire environment--innovations, management, and policy; conference proceedings
• Bret W. Butler, Mark A. Finney, Larry S. Bradshaw, Jason M. Forthofer, Chuck McHugh, Rick Stratton, Dan M. Jimenez. 2006. WindWizard: A New Tool for Fire Management Decision Support
• Patricia L. Andrews, Bret W. Butler. 2006. Fuels Management-How to Measure Success: Conference Proceedings
• David R. Weise, Thomas Fletcher, Larry Baxter, Shankar Mahalingam, Xiangyang Zhou, Patrick Pagni, Rod Linn, Bret W. Butler. 2004. A fundamental look at fire spread in California chaparral
• Dan M. Jimenez, Bret W. Butler, Jim J. Reardon. 2003. Stem mortality in surface fires: Part II, experimental methods for characterizing the thermal response of tree stems to heating by fires
• Jack D. Cohen, Bret W. Butler. 1998. Modeling potential structure ignitions from flame radiation exposure with implications for wildland/urban interface fire management
• Bret W. Butler, Roberta A. Bartlette, Larry S. Bradshaw, Jack D. Cohen, Patricia L. Andrews, Ted Putnam, Richard J. Mangan. 1998. Fire behavior associated with the 1994 South Canyon fire on Storm King Mountain, Colorado
• Bret W. Butler, Timothy D. Reynolds. 1997. Wildfire case study: Butte City Fire, southeastern Idaho, July 1, 1994

• Center or Group
  

  Fire and Smoke Model Evaluation Experiment (FASMEE)

  https://research.fs.usda.gov/pnw/centers/fasmee
  Station

  Pacific Northwest Research Station
• Project
  

  RxCADRE (Combustion-Atmospheric Dynamics Research Experiments)

  https://research.fs.usda.gov/pnw/projects/rxcadre
  Station

  Pacific Northwest Research Station
• Project
  

  Soil Heating and Fire Effects

  https://research.fs.usda.gov/firelab/projects/soilheating
• Project
  

  RxCadre Project

  https://research.fs.usda.gov/firelab/projects/rxcadre
• Project
  

  MASTIDON - Masticated fuel characteristics

  https://research.fs.usda.gov/firelab/projects/mastidon
• Project
  

  Clearance Distances

  https://research.fs.usda.gov/firelab/projects/clearance

Other Publications

• Understory
  

  Assessing Wildland Firefighter Entrapment Survivability

  https://research.fs.usda.gov/firelab/understory/assessing-wildland-firefighter-entrapment-survivability

• Brigham Young University, Ph.D., Mechanical Engineering with an emphasis on energy transport in particle-laden flames., 1992
• Brigham Young University, M.S. Cum Laude, Mechanical Engineering, 1988
• Brigham Young University, B.S., Mechanical Engineering, 1986