Treesearch

Bark beetles can cause substantial mortality of trees that would otherwise survive fire injuries. Resin response of fire-injured northern Rocky Mountain ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa Douglas ex P. Lawson & C. Lawson) and specific injuries that contribute to increased bark beetle attack susceptibility and brood production are unknown. We monitored ponderosa pine mortality and resin flow and bark beetle colonization and reproduction following a prescribed fire in Idaho and a wildfire in Montana. The level of fire-caused tree injury differed between the two sites, and the level of tree...

Both the San Francisco Peaks ragwort, Packera franciscana and the La Sal daisy, Erigeron mancus are endemic to treeline/alpine habitats of the single mountain they inhabit. There is little habitat available for these plant species to migrate upward in a warming climate scenario. For P. franciscana, 2008 estimates indicate over 18,000 ramets in a 4 m band along a recreational trail in the Arizona San Francisco Peaks, a trail-side population centroid of 3667 m, and that the population is producing and dispersing seed. We also mapped the 2008 distribution of E. mancus patches a long the La...

The purpose of this assessment is to answer a number of questions from the agency administrator and Fire Management staff. What are the risks to the following points of concern: Wilderness boundary; Forest Boundary; Minam Lodge and Red's Horse Ranch; Private Lands in Catherine Creek; Lostine River "cherry stem"; Probability of the fire establishing itself in the bottom of the Minam River.

While the Near Term Fire Behavior analysis option in WFDSS is similar to FARSITE, the advantage of using FARSITE lies in the ability to use gridded winds which produces more reliable fire behavior results in complex terrain. A couple of FARSITE simulations were completed to evaluate fire growth and fire behavior in relation to the values, notably Red's Horse Ranch and the Minam Lodge.

Risk analysis evolved out of the need to make decisions concerning highly stochastic events, and is well suited to analyze the timing, location and potential effects of wildfires. Over the past 10 years, the application of risk analysis to wildland fire management has seen steady growth with new risk-based analytical tools that support a wide range of fire and fuels management planning scales from individual incidents to national, strategic interagency programs. After a brief review of the three components of fire risk – likelihood, intensity and effects – this paper reviews recent...

We used simulation modelling to analyze spatial variation in wildfire exposure relative to key social and economic features on the island of Sardinia, Italy. Sardinia contains a high density of urban interfaces, recreational values and highly valued agricultural areas that are increasingly being threatened by severe wildfires. Historical fire data and wildfire simulations were used to estimate burn probabilities, flame length and fire size. We examined how these risk factors varied among and within highly valued features located on the island. Estimates of bum probability excluding...

At the Priest River Experimental Forest in northern Idaho, USA, snow water equivalent (SWE) was recorded over a period of six years on random, equally-spaced plots in ~4.5 ha small watersheds (n=10). Two watersheds were selected as controls and eight as treatments, with two watersheds randomly assigned per treatment as follows: harvest (2007) followed by mastication (2008), harvest (2007) followed by prescribed fire (2008), prescribed fire alone (2006), and prescribed fire (2006) followed by salvage (2007). Canopy closure was recorded using a digital hemispherical camera, and snow water...

Eccentricity of stems of Artemisia tridentata Nutt. (big sagebrush) has been reported previously. Analysis of samples observed over 2 years documented that each stem terminal produces about 8-10 branches each year, and during second-year growth, 3-8 of these develop into short, flowering, determinate branches. Each flowering branch produces hundreds of seeds and then dies at the end of the season, while the other vegetative branches persist. However, growth of the determinate flowering branches causes the death of vascular cambium surrounding their attachment points on the main stem. This...

The first step in designing a surface water sampling program is identifying one or more problems or questions that require information on water quality. Common water quality problems include nutrient enrichment (from a variety of causes), effects of atmospheric deposition (acidification, eutrophication, toxicity), and effects of major disturbances such as fire or pest infestations. Once the problems or questions have been clearly defined, a sampling program can be designed that addresses where to sample, what to measure, and when and how to conduct the sampling. The selection of measurement...

Most mature lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta var. latifolia Engelm. ex Wats.) forests in the central and southern Rocky Mountains originated after stand-replacing wildfires or logging (Brown 1975, Lotan and Perry 1983, Romme 1982). In recent years, mountain pine beetle (Dendroctonus ponderosae Hopkins) outbreaks have created a widespread, synchronous disturbance (i.e., greater than 1.4 million hectares of pine forests in Colorado and southeastern Wyoming since 1996) (USDA 2010) that will shape forest dynamics for the coming century. Compared with the ample knowledge of how lodgepole forests...