Articles

At the Fernow Experimental Forest, scientists examined how prescribed fire, deer exclusion, and canopy gap creation applied individually and in combination influenced seed bank diversity and composition in an Appalachian hardwood forest. Combinations of all three disturbances led to a more unique seedbank community, and prescribed fire had the strongest independent effect on seed abundance.

Recent experiments show that even "fire-safe" cigarettes can start a wildfire.

Just in time for National Grasslands Week, the Microsoft "AI for Good" program announced that StockSmart, a livestock grazing management tool, will receive financial and technical support to enhance the tool’s capability. The award includes Microsoft Azure cloud computing credits and the opportunity to work with scientists from the AI for Good Lab, which will enable the winning team of researchers from Washington State University, the University of Arizona, and the USDA Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station to further develop and enhance StockSmart for ranchers, range specialists, and others who use it.

Huge quantities of data on prescribed fire are being collected and will eventually inform next-generation models of fuel, fire behavior, fire effects and smoke. The work will improve prescribed fire planning tools and aims to make prescribed fires easier and safer to implement.

Collaborative research involving the Hoosier National Forest, Northern Research Station, and Purdue University revealed that regenerating oak using shelterwood and one prescribed burn on drier, less productive sites could help return oaks to the landscape in a cost-effective way.

The Athens Prescribed Fire Science Laboratory of the USDA Forest Service is a mesoscale combustion facility dedicated to advancing prescribed fire science. The facility allows the team and their partners to make new discoveries about the basic physics of fire behavior, spread, and smoke. Making prescribed fires safer is a goal that brings participants together.

The American Society of Agricultural and Biological Engineers awarded USDA Forest Service Emeritus Research Engineer Bill Elliot a 2025 Superior Paper Award for his publication, “Runoff and Erosion Following a Prescribed Fire on a Sagebrush-Steppe Rangeland in Idaho, USA.”Rangelands provide water filtration, biodiversity, and are vital for wildlife and livestock.This research can help manag...

An updated chapter within the 2024 Remote Sensing Handbook describes ongoing global challenges facing rangeland management, how practitioners are addressing them, and includes advances in remote sensing capabilities.

Researchers studying the girdle-herbicide method reported an overall success rate of 55 percent in containing oak wilt spread. In clusters of four or fewer infected trees, the success rate was up to 81 percent effective.

Long-term water quality monitoring at Hubbard Brook led to the discovery of acid rain in the White Mountain National Forest and informed solutions that have reduced it over time.

From 1990 to 2020, the total wildland-urban-interface increased by 31% in area, and the number of total wildland-urban-interface houses increased by 46%, from 30 million to 44 million. Expanding wildland urban interface growth places more homes at risk to wildfire and also increases disturbance to forests.

A new study reveals how the data from everyday smartphones can help us better understand and balance the needs of wildlife and recreationists.

Using data from 2013 to 2015, researchers looked at precipitation, streamflow, water turbidity, and suspended-sediment concentration on the Colorado Front Range.

WindNinja is an open-source high-resolution wind model developed for wildland fire. It is used on nearly every large fire incident in the United States. WindNinja was recently updated to Version 3.12.0 with several new features and bug fixes.

Eastern hemlock is a foundational species in forests across the eastern United States. The invasive insect, hemlock woolly adelgid, has killed millions of hemlocks across the eastern United States and altered forest dynamics since it was first discovered in 1950. In response, forest managers have sought proactive silvicultural strategies to strengthen hemlock resilience before infestation occurs. Researchers at the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service are studying how thinning hemlock stands might be used as a proactive strategy against HWA establishment and spread by improving tree vigor and increasing light availability.

The Behave Fire Modeling System is one of the most used computer programs for modeling both wildfire and prescribed fire. Behave was recently reworked into a new version that is designed to be more intuitive and easier to use, while still offering the same functionality as previous versions.

Northern Research Station scientists use terrestrial laser scanning to record detailed, three-dimensional data models of vegetation structures as they interact with fire in order to identify areas of high fire risk and develop targeted fuel reduction strategies. They are also investigating the complex factors that contribute to firebrand spread.

Wildfire risks will continue to evolve as both society and forests change across the southeastern United States, according to a new report.The report is one part of the Southern Forest Outlook, a project undertaken by the USDA Forest Service in partnership with the Southern Group of State Foresters to help forest managers and the public understand changing forest conditions in the South over th...

Forty-five years after the most catastrophic volcanic eruption in United States history, one of the world's biggest outdoor laboratories for studying environmental disturbance continues to yield new knowledge for the next generation of Forest Service scientists, research partners, and the American public.

Researchers are collaborating with the Keweenaw Bay Indian Community in Baraga County, Michigan to use plants to absorb heavy metals along the shorelines of Sand Point through a process called phytoremediation.