Articles

This national study found that long-term efforts to promote desired vegetation species and reduce fuels for wildfires can be accomplished using restoration treatments like thinning, mastication, and prescribed burning if the treatments and goals are tailored to local ecosystem type and maintained over time.

With just a click or two, you can learn about the forests of every state, including information about how much forested land is present, timber volume, the most common species of trees, and more.

Rapid implementation of fuels reduction treatments in the southern Sierra Nevada, CA, has the potential to not only safeguard our forest resources, but also save the habitat of fishers.

Wildfire risk information must be deemed useful to have positive correlations with acceptability of public land fuels treatments.

Rocky Mountain Research Station researcher David Flores partnered with Jasper de Vries, researcher at Wageningen University and Research, to create an interactive game that puts Integrated Fire Management (IFM) strategies into practice within the fictional community of ‘Pyrotown’. This learning tool prepares players for the complex scenarios Integrated Fire Management practitioners face in ...

Forest managers can harvest timber while supporting thriving wildlife populations, clean water, and healthy soil. Forest Service science helps them accomplish these goals.

As agency crews replant millions of acres and billions of trees following increasingly severe wildfires and other disturbances, reforestation science ensures seedlings thrive. This means the agency can spend tree planting resources wisely and ensure timber-producing trees survive to harvest.

Participate in a public engagement session to help evaluate emergency messages.

This study synthesizes existing and new datasets to develop a west-wide spatial prioritization for conifer management to improve sagebrush ecological integrity.

Scientists identified drone image processing settings that optimize the balance of data accuracy and processing efficiency for mapping individual trees.

The performance of tree seedlings planted after wildfire is shaped by a host of factors, including average planting site climate, post-planting weather, and seed lot sources.

Many stream organisms like the Idaho giant salamander are difficult to find, and descriptions of their key habitat conditions and species ranges are imprecise. Now, combining historical observations with new eDNA samples and modeling techniques make it possible to generate accurate species’ maps.

A collaborative research endeavor at Rocky Mountain Research Stations Manitou Experimental Forest is reshaping our expectations of how water is stored in western forests.

The hatchR software ecosystem allows users to check and summarize data, create custom models, and predict when fish hatch or emerge in wild environments.

Naturally occurring soil microbes like Armillaria altimontana may help increase forest productivity by suppressing Armillaria root disease in conifer forests. Fire severity may influence the abundance of these soil microbes to suppress or enhance the disease.

Flood damage to road-stream crossings presents a safety hazard and is expensive to repair. While crossing structure design has progressed over time to address flood resilience, little research has been conducted to evaluate the performance of culverts and bridges after floods. In 2016, an extreme flood in northwestern Wisconsin created an opportunity to address this knowledge gap.

The occurrence of wildfires and subsequent need for personnel is more likely to impact if the Okanogan–Wenatchee conducts prescribed burns in the fall rather than in the spring.

Climate warming in southwest drylands has been associated with changes in vegetation and fuels and decreases in resilience to wildfire indicating that climate smart management strategies are needed to help direct ecosystems into conditions that can decrease fire risk, increase resistance to plant invasions, and reduce vulnerability to climate change.

Using past wildfire data to analyze where firelines were successful, burned over, or unengaged provides data-driven insights for safer, smarter, and more effective wildfire response strategies and decisions.

Widespread stream incision across the Western U.S. has led to the loss of floodplain connectivity, lowered water tables, and the degradation of riparian ecosystems. These changes reduce biodiversity, diminish water storage capacity, harm grazing lands and wildlife habitat, increase vulnerability to drought, and eliminate wetland corridors that once functioned as natural firebreaks.