Science for wildfire and safety: Post-fire management and recovery
Stabilizing, reforesting, and restoring post-fire
A cross-agency group of regional specialists and scientists advises managers how to reforest landscapes, choose nursery stock, and improve existing trees. These efforts often include science-based decision support tools to help focus resources where they are most needed.
Contract tree planters planting whitebark pine seedlings on the Flathead National Forest, Montana in 2020.
Agency scientists developed methods for growing more resilient seedlings and tracking factors increasing seedling survival. The Climate Smart Restoration Tool helps land managers match seeds with geographic areas—“seed zones”—under current and projected environmental conditions. The target plant concept ensures managers plant the right trees, in the right place, at the right time. It helps managers consider the connections among seed sources, seedling characteristics, nursery practices, and post-planting growth and survival to foster the next generation of trees while prudently using funding and resources.
Research on the Arapaho and Roosevelt National Forests in Colorado found that seedling survival was nearly twice as high on north aspects. Study scientists developed recommendations for managers in this region, such as planting seedlings in depressions and in the shade of stumps, large rocks, and downed logs.
The Southern Rockies Reforestation Tool helps managers successfully plant ponderosa pine and Douglas-fir seedlings after wildfire. The scientists behind it also developed a framework for restoration that mimics aspects of past forests to build a more resilient future.
After Fire: A Toolkit for the Southwest aids people and communities in reducing the risks of post-fire hazards.
Research on timber harvesting and water supplies in the Piedmont region of North Carolina examines how fire intensity and severity, forest management, soil type, and other factors may interact with a century’s worth of erosion-caused sediment to affect water quantity and quality.
Fire refugia—areas where fires typically burn less frequently or less severely than their surroundings—aid forests after disturbance. Agency researchers help managers identify these areas and prioritize them for fuels reduction work, allowing refugia to persist.
Agency scientists identified western white pine plantations with the best chances of surviving a wildfire, helping managers focus post-disturbance efforts.
Agency scientists and their partners in the Pacific Northwest are monitoring effects of passive and active forest management after stand-replacing wildfires. Their research will inform post-fire management, including restoration treatments, reforestation and fuels management strategies, and desired future condition planning.
Rapid post-fire assessments of fuels consumption from the Forest Inventory and Analysis program quantify wildfire effects on standing and down trees. The assessments combine ground-truthed data with cutting-edge technology such as terrestrial laser scanning. Coming updates will use a sampling and estimation framework to improve forest attribute data useful to the fire community.
After stand-replacing fire, some forests are unlikely to return to their prior state. They may transition to different forest types—or even grasslands or shrublands. Agency researchers identified areas where it may be possible to prevent such transitions through forest treatments that reduce future fire severity.
Invasive annual grasses like cheatgrass often spread because of fires—but not always. Agency scientists are discovering the mechanisms that drive invasions to help managers control invasive plants after fires in sagebrush landscapes.
Preserving water quality
After severe wildfires, ash and burned soil can spill into rivers, sullying normally crystal-clear waters and impairing water quality, aquatic habitats, and ecosystem resilience. Agency research suggests that planting in riparian areas and along stream corridors can increase nutrient retention, preserving water quality and benefiting ecosystems as a whole.
Field technicians assessing canopy cover and taking water samples at a stream on the Arapaho Roosevelt National Forest.
By monitoring short and long-term efforts to restore watersheds, agency scientists developed a field guide for mapping post-fire soil burn severity. With this tool, Burned Area Emergency Response teams, water providers, and others can quickly identify areas prone to erosion.
An environmental DNA-based monitoring protocol can support those protecting aquatic wildlife during post-fire recovery. Following the 2022 Black Fire in New Mexico, agency scientists used environmental DNA sampling—a quick and cost effective method of wildlife monitoring that can detect trace amounts of DNA in samples as small as a few cups of water—to assess fire effects on threatened fish species.
Managers can use FIRE-BIRD, a tool that maps suitable wildlife habitat, to design post-fire salvage logging and forest management plans that coexist with areas where wildlife are recuperating. Additionally, the Fire Effects Information System synthesizes data about fire effects on thousands of species and ecosystems—including ecosystems that rarely burn—for managers to use in fire and fuels management, project planning, and environmental analysis.
Rebuilding fire-resilient forests
Ecological restoration frameworks, such as one for the Colorado Front Range, feature knowledge from agency land managers and scientists to help others restore resilient forests.
The Westside Fire Research Initiative pairs researchers and managers to investigate the growing frequency and intensity of fires on the west side of the Cascade Range in Oregon and Washington. This research integrates data on past, present, and future fire regimes to help create forest resilience strategies.
The Silas Little Experimental Forest in New Jersey partners with local agencies to address modern fire challenges and investigate how silviculture and forest management impact fire.