Articles

Forests provide tremendous economic value to communities and the nation. They provide timber, safe clean drinking water, recreation opportunities, and countless other benefits. However, these values are missing or undercounted in the nation's economic statistics (for example, in GDP).Forest Service researchers developed the first ever environmental-economic statistics for the United States. Nat...

Research conducted by Forest Products Lab scientists and collaborators has resulted in the first cross-laminated timber (CLT) shear wall seismic force resisting system (SFRS) to be approved in the U.S. model building code. This advance can support more widespread use of CLT in regions of North America with high winds and earthquake activity. It is only the second wood-based SFRS ever approved.

FSim is a wildfire simulation system that models hundreds of millions of large fire events to produce national-scale maps of wildfire probability and intensity – which are critical components of risk.

Managing wildfires for resource benefit can create diverse fire patterns across the landscape that maximize both plant and animal species richness, with different taxa benefiting from different fire characteristics.

We found that most Engelmann spruce seedlings we sourced from Canada all the way down to New Mexico can survive being planted at a high elevation site in Colorado but they differ in the amount that they grow after 45 years.

Fishers were successfully moved from the Midwest established in the Northern Rocky Mountains, but remain genetically distinct from local populations.

Using tree-ring data we reconstructed fire size within our study area, which was then calibrated with recent fire perimeters. Having a complete area-burned reconstruction for the past 300 years we found that the 20-year rate of burning in our study area in the Gila wilderness is now similar to pre-1900 area burned rates.

A new review describes how conifers react to various forest insects and diseases of the western United States and illustrates what remote sensing technologies are available for detecting conifer responses.

America's wildlife are increasingly experiencing drought with southwest birds already showing declines during dry years.

We provide a roadmap for incorporating animal communities clearly into opportunities for ecological integrity monitoring using new advances in monitoring technology, data availability, statistical methods, and computation power.

Subalpine prey, plants, and the snowy habits that support them likely help the endangered Sierra Nevada red fox coexist with widespread generalist carnivores. More information about the status and trends of these key prey species, especially white-tailed jackrabbits and snowshoe hares, are important for conservation of specialist montane carnivores, such as the Sierra Nevada red fox.

Fire weather, treatment design, and surface fuel load all influence potential fire severity, but when restoration treatments integrate small tree removal, they are as effective as fuel hazard reduction treatments at reducing fire behavior and effects.

Replacing traditional wood burning outdoor fire pits and fire rings with fire pits specifically designed to function as low-smoke could significantly reduce fine particulate matter and other air pollutants produced during recreational outdoor burning.

Trees are less able to survive fire when they are affected by severe drought, which may reduce the resilience of western forests.

The Fireshed Registry is a geospatial dashboard where land managers and decision makers can view and map data related to wildfire exposure, completed management actions, and past and predicted wildfires.

The Forest Inventory and Analysis Program led a study that combined its national ground inventory with a new satellite-based albedo record to compare the cooling caused by carbon storage in American forests with the warming caused by associated reductions in albedo (surface reflectiveness).

Through development and application of a sophisticated and efficient mathematical technique, we improved yearly estimates of key forest attributes for individual U.S. States using nationwide forest measurement data from the Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) Program.

This study introduces an online tool that allows citizens to develop strategies for benefiting pollinators in their own backyards.

The establishment of a Social Science Research Group (SSRG) for wildfire – a group of social scientists from multiple disciplines along with highly experienced practitioners – offers a unique opportunity to examine the complex interactions required to address wildfire. For much of the Forest Service’s history, investments related to wildfire risk have focused on calculating risk based on ...

No previous research has examined wildland firefighter injuries to figure out which activities and hazards are most dangerous, even though firefighting is known to be an occupation that exposes employees to many hazards. From the Rocky Mountain Research Station, researcher Erin Belval and fire management specialist Brad Pietruszka collaborated with co-author Alex Viktora of Fire and Aviation Ma...