Treesearch

In recent years, the field of wildfire risk management has seen dramatic advances. One notable improvement is in the realm of pre-fire suppression response planning, in particular the expansion from the assessment of risks posed by fire to the assessment of opportunities to effectively manage fire. Such proactive assessment and planning is critical to ensure that suppression response strategies and tactics are more likely to be safe and efficient. In this paper we will review the state-of-the-art in wildfire suppression planning, and illustrate application of advanced planning tools on a...

En Colorado, los bosques secos de coníferas mixtas de la Cordillera frontal han sufrido un cambio radical. A mediados de los 1800, los bosques de la Cordillera frontal eran más abiertos y herbáceos, y los rodales eran de dos a tres veces menos densos. Había árboles de todas las clases de tamaño en una disposición “agrupada”, en la que los grupos de árboles estaban separados por aperturas de un acre o menos. A nivel del paisaje, existía un rico mosaico paisajístico con bosques maduros de edad desigual mantenidos por incendios de baja gravedad, entremezclados con parches de bosque de...

Live fuel, on average, was the most important factor driving high-severity fire in and among ecoregions. Fire weather was the second most important factor, followed by climate and topography. Recently published ecoregional wall-to-wall gridded maps, based on satellite imagery that characterizes live fuel, are available to help land managers in the western United States identify areas with a high probability of high-severity fire.

Understanding the linkage between decreasing wetting rain days and increased risk of wildfires will enable fuels managers and forest managers to better anticipate wildfire severity and where wildfires may occur. The number of wetting rain days (WRDs) is expected to decrease throughout the West, which could lead to more burned acres. TopoFire, a drought and wildfire danger monitoring system for the conterminous United States, now includes a wetting rain day dataset. https://topofire.dbs.umt.edu/ topofire_v3/index.php.

Burned low-elevation sagebrush sites can be seeded with mixes of native grasses, forbs and shrubs using rangeland drills adapted for seeding large and small seeds in separate rows. Seeding technique, timing of seed application, and seeding rate are important considerations when seeding Wyoming big sagebrush.

Historical stand reconstruction shows that the ponderosa and dry mixed-conifer forests of Colorado’s Front Range were more open and grassy than they are today, with a very variable mix of tree sizes that were often clumped together. Much of the Front Range is characterized by a mixed-severity fire regime, with low, moderate, and high-severity fire effects all having occurred historically, based on factors such as elevation and slope.

Whitebark pine will continue to decline over the next several decades, mostly from white pine blister rust, and mountain pine beetle mortality and indirectly by climate change impacts on regeneration and growth. This decline can be reversed or mitigated with proactive restoration actions; whereas if restoration does not take place, whitebark pine forests will continue to decline becoming a minor, if not missing, component on the high elevation landscapes in western North America.

Monitoring records indicate that river temperatures during the summer and early fall months have risen about 1 °C over the past 40 years in the northwestern United States. If river warming continues at rates similar to recent decades, water temperatures are expected to rise another 1 °C by 2050 and by 2-3 °C by the end of the century. In many locations, trout and salmon will have to shift into cooler areas or migrate at different times of the year to avoid thermally stressful conditions.

Recently published research can help land managers to identify important hubs and pathways of genetic connectivity for greater sage-grouse. This knowledge can be used in evaluating proposed development or management actions in terms of how they could disrupt, protect or restore critical places of conservation for greater sage-grouse habitat.

Overall, mulching treatments in three Colorado conifer forest types promoted denser and more diverse native understory plant communities, particularly over the longer-term. The positive effect of mulching on understory plants was largely driven by the response of herbaceous plants; shrubs showed little response to mulching treatments. Exotic plants tended to be more common in mulched stands than in untreated stands. While understory plants in mulched stands could be heavily suppressed in localized areas where mulch contributed to a deep forest floor, these areas were rare.