Treesearch

This study uses qualitative sociological methodology to discover information and insights about the role of Incident Management Teams in wildland fire suppression costs. We interviewed 48 command and general staff members of Incident Management Teams throughout the United States. Interviewees were asked about team structure, functioning, and decision making as a framework for determining their views on issues that drive costs. Topics affecting costs that emerged prominently are discussed in this report. They include, in no particular order: lack of decision space; outside costs over which...

The range and variation of historical landscape dynamics could provide a useful reference for designing fuel treatments on today's landscapes. Simulation modeling is a vehicle that can be used to estimate the range of conditions experienced on historical landscapes. A landscape fire succession model called LANDSUMv4 (LANDscape SUccession Model version 4.0) is presented here as a tool for estimating historical range and variation (HRV) of landscape characteristics. The model simulates fire and succession on fine scale landscapes for land management applications. It simulates vegetation...

The objectives of our study were to determining the effects of velvet mesquite (Prosopis velutina) removal, control of the resulting basal sprouts, and mulching treatments on herbage production (standing biomass) and selected soil chemicals (nutrients) shown to affect herbage production on the Santa Rita Experimental Range. Mesquite control treatments consisted of overstory removal by chain saw with and without control of the resulting basal sprouts. Mulching treatments were applications of mesquite wood chips, commercial compost, or lopped-and-scattered mesquite branchwood. Mesquite...

Fishers (Martes pennanti) were purportedly extirpated from Montana by 1930 and extant populations are assumed to be descended from translocated fishers. To determine the lineage of fisher populations, we sequenced 2 regions of the mitochondrial DNA genome from 207 tissue samples from British Columbia, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Montana. In northwestern Montana, fishers share haplotypes with samples from the upper Midwest and British Columbia; in west-central Montana, we detected haplotypes found in British Columbia samples, but also detected a control region and cytochrome-b haplotype not...

Public concern over the consequences of forest fire to wildland interface communities has led to increased resources devoted to fire suppression, fuel treatment, and management of fire events. The social consequences of the decisions involved in these and other fire-related actions are largely unknown, except in an anecdotal sense, but do occur at a variety of temporal and social organizational scales. These consequences are not limited to the fire event itself. Preparation for the possibility of a fire, actions that suppression agencies take during a fire, and postfire decisions all have...

The Metadata (MD) table in the FIREMON database is used to record any information about the sampling strategy or data collected using the FIREMON sampling procedures. The MD method records metadata pertaining to a group of FIREMON plots, such as all plots in a specific FIREMON project. FIREMON plots are linked to metadata using a unique metadata identifier that is entered in the MD table and in the PD data for each FIREMON plot. Metadata pertaining to a single plot are recorded in the comments field on the FIREMON PD data form.

The Fire Behavior (FB) method is used to describe the behavior of the fire and the ambient weather and fuel conditions that influence the fire behavior. Fire behavior methods are not plot based and are collected by fire event and time-date. In general, the fire behavior data are used to interpret the fire effects documented in the plot-level sampling. Unlike the other plot-level sampling methods, the Fire Behavior methods are documented observations taken over the course of a fire event. The FireID field in the PD method links the FB database table to the plot-level data. The Flame Length,...

On behalf of the Audubon Research Ranch, welcome to this conference concerning the Black-Tailed Prairie Dog. This conference, a continuation of the Grasslands Ecosystem Session in Tucson, Arizona, in 1996 is to further the knowledge and understanding of these grasslands that we live in, and an effort to share these unique biotic communities with others.

The distribution of riparian plant species is largely driven by hydrologic and soil variables, and riparian plant communities frequently occur in relatively distinct zones along streamside elevational and soil textural gradients. In two montane meadows in northeast Oregon, USA, we examined plant species distribution in three riparian plant communities¡ªdefined as wet, moist, and dry meadow¡ªalong short topographic gradients. We established transects from streamside wet meadow communities to the dry meadow communities located on the floodplain terrace. Within each of the three communities,...

The Asian longhorned beetle (Anoplophora glabripennis) and emerald ash borer (Agrilus planipennis) are exotic forest insects that have had severe impacts on host tree species where they have become established in North America in recent years. Several other exotic forest arthropods have also appeared recently in North America, but have gained less notoriety. Although their potential impacts are less, the full extent of their impacts remains unknown. Some examples of these other exotic arthropod species are the granulate ambrosia beetle (Xylosandrus crassiusculus), banded elm bark beetle...