Fuels treatment, specifically prescribed fire and mechanical cutting, are key management techniques that can protect areas of high value, such as homes within the wildland urban interface, and restore important ecological processes. Further, reduction of fuels improves the resilience of forests and rangelands to wildfire, insect outbreaks, plant invasions, and other disturbances. Research related to prescribed burning and mechanical fuel treatments can be readily applied on the ground and helps identify target ecosystem structures and composition. Forest Service science also informs the application of fuel treatments at scales that are size and timing appropriate. Forest Service scientists develop and study novel fuels treatments, monitor the effects of these treatments, and work with land managers to create best management practices guiding the use of fuel treatments.

Using science to inform fuels management and prescribed fire is critical because:

• Ecological restoration of forests and rangelands based on sound science often improves on-the-ground outcomes.

• Monitoring of mechanical cutting, prescribed fire, and other fuels management work helps us understand the short- and long-term impacts of this type of management.

• Social science can help inform how managers work with communities and improve social acceptance of these types of management.

Featured Work

• The Fire Effects Information System developed by Forest Service Research and Development publishes online peer-reviewed syntheses on species, fire regimes, and fire studies so that land managers can easily find and apply science to land management decisions.

• In the Southern U.S., fire is widely used as part of forest management, including longleaf pine restoration. Forest Service research related to prescribed fire in those systems is providing important insights related to the timing of fire and maximizing longleaf pine growth.

• In forests of the Sierra Nevada, our studies show that thinning and prescribed fire can produce a diverse forest that not only provides greater habitat variety but is also resilient to extreme drought.

• Photographs documenting forest management activity (since the early 1900s) and cut-burn treatments (since 1991) at the Lick Creek Demonstration Research Forest in Montana show how quickly dry forests in the Northern Rocky Mountains can change. A long-term study at Lick Creek demonstrates how fuel treatments in dry forests provide benefits beyond mitigating the chance of a high-severity fire. These benefits include persistent increased tree growth even during drought, and reduced tree mortality from mountain pine beetle.

• Forest Service scientists have developed QUIC-Fire, a prescribed fire planning tool, to assist land managers in understanding how ignition patterns connect to fire effects and smoke impacts. The tool can rapidly predict complex fire behavior.

• Forest Service social scientists investigated barriers and opportunities related to increasing the use of prescribed fire. Although air quality is often thought to be a key barrier to prescribed fire, overall lack of adequate capacity and funding were the most commonly cited barriers in this study.