Articles

The Wildfire Risk to Communities data viewer is the latest addition to the suite of tools developed to help communities understand, explore, and reduce wildfire risk. The new data viewer makes the entire suite of WRC data available to anyone, without the need for GIS software or managing large data files.

Research has led to an unexpected new cost-effective approach to producing a key ingredient in life-saving medications.

User feedback is key to future improvements of the Interagency Fuel Treatment Decision Support System. In 2023, partners from the University of Idaho interviewed 47 IFTDSS users to gain a better understanding of how users use the system, what they like, and what they’d like to change. This feedback will help the tool evolve to continue to meet the needs of the fuels management community.

Changing fire regimes combine with improvements in wildfire risk technology to impact the spatial pattern and magnitude of simulated wildfire transmission to communities.

For 25 years, ranchers in South Dakota have used the South Dakota Drought Tool to estimate forage productivity of grazing lands. This crucial information helps them gauge whether to increase or decrease their herd size the following year.

Ecological restoration and fuel hazard reduction are compatible—variable retention treatments that create structural heterogeneity for wildlife and plant diversity can achieve substantial fire behavior reductions when surface fuels and small trees are treated.

We show that commonly used stream restoration practices can increase riparian soil carbon stocks. These gains in carbon were only seen when restoration also increased soil moisture. While elevated moisture can also stimulate methane emissions, these emissions did not offset the climate benefit of increased soil carbon.

Precipitation can impact correlations between leaf functional traits and associations between these traits and gene expression.

Understanding the processes involved in polyploid formation are critical in assessing plant abilities to adapt to the unprecedented rates of environmental change. Our study provides support that Artemisia and likely other plants have dual pathways, described as one- and two-step. Our study provides further support for a paradigm in which polyploidy is an important, recurrent mechanism in generating genomic diversity, occurring on generational timescales.

Rather than maximizing partner involvement in coproduction at all stages of the research process, we emphasize designing collaborative processes that enhance partner buy-in and research relevance and impact while acknowledging resource constraints. Because researchers recognized that excessive involvement could create undue burdens, leading to collaboration fatigue and logistical challenges. Non-researchers were engaged most heavily during research interpretation, and the dissemination and application phases.

A new innovation from the Forest Service Forest Products Laboratory, Washington State University, and the University of Florida could reduce food waste while providing a new outlet and use for wood pulp. Barrier coatings for fruit made from naturally-derived, biodegradable compounds could be a safe and effective way to preserve fruit. These coatings are applied to the exterior of fruit peels with the intention of keeping the fruit fresher for longer.

The USDA Forest Service’s Centennial Research Facility at Forest Products Laboratory in Madison, Wisconsin, celebrated its 15th anniversary in 2025, marking over a decade of groundbreaking research, partnerships, and advancements in wood science that support a sustainable future.

Updated tax tips are available as a forest landowner resource for the 2025 tax season.

The mountains of the West have been remarkably bare this winter. Low snow levels and unseasonably warm temperatures have caused a widespread snow drought, which makes many parts of the West more vulnerable to other disturbances this year. Thirteen scientists with Forest Service R&D weighed in on what this snow drought might mean for national forests and grasslands.

Generative text-to-image tools that use artificial intelligence (AI) can create images from keywords. This transformative technology has the potential to improve the community engagement process in landscape planning and help ensure that these projects meet the community's needs quickly without requiring extensive graphic design knowledge.

When it comes to rationing recreation opportunities, visitors have varied preferences and different user groups will benefit depending on the approach used.

A long term project helps managers influence the development of western larch forests by identifying the long-term effects of hot versus cool prescribed burns on duff reduction and later conifer recruitment.

Initial results from Phase I of the WOODWISE test series show that encapsulation may not affect fire temperature but does reduce the total heat release rate and reduce fire spread at the floor-to-wall connections in mass timber. These results also underscore the importance of considering how the type of fuels present in mass timber buildings can change fire behavior.

Integrated plant functional strategies arise via selection on trait combinations and genes that encode multiple traits.

Post-fire seeding in drylands often has low success rates that are likely to be improved by seeding at higher rates and/or across multiple years in order to hit years with suitable precipitation.