Treesearch

This article offers a literature-supported conception and empirically grounded analysis of surprise by exploring the capacity of scenario-driven, agent-based simulation models to better anticipate it. Building on literature-derived definitions and typologies of surprise, and using results from a modeled 81,000 ha study area in a wildland-urban interface of western Oregon’s Willamette Valley Ecoregion, the paper explores surprise by analyzing alternative future deviations from historical fire size at multiple spatial and temporal scales. It investigates whether, how and why modeled patterns...

One component of climate‐fire interactions is the relationship between weather conditions concurrent with burning (i.e., fire danger) and the magnitude of fire activity. Here daily environmental conditions are associated with daily observations of fire activity within ecoregions across the continental United States (CONUS) by aligning the latter 12 years of a 36 year gridded fire danger climatology with the Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer fire products. Results reveal that although modern relationships (2003–2014) vary regionally, fires across the majority of CONUS are more...

Safety zones are areas where firefighters can retreat to in order to avoid bodily harm when threatened by burnover or entrapment from wildland fire. At present, safety zones are primarily designated by firefighting personnel as part of daily fire management activities. Though critical to safety zone assessment, the effectiveness of this approach is inherently limited by the individual firefighter’s or crew boss’s ability to accurately and consistently interpret vegetation conditions, topography, and spatial characteristics of potential safety zones (e.g. area and geometry of a forest...

A field study was conducted of flows in the Birch Creek Valley in eastern Idaho. There is a distinct topographic constriction in the Birch Creek Valley that creates two subbasins: an upper and lower valley. The data were classified into one of three groups based on synoptic influence (weak/absent, high wind speeds, and other evidence of synoptic influence). Gap flows commonly developed downwind of the constriction in association with the weak/absent group but also occurred in association with the two synoptic groups suggesting the potential for more diverse origins. In general, the...

Despite dramatic increases in suppression spending, the risk of life and property loss associated with wildfire has continued to rise in recent decades. Economic losses from wildfires have doubled in the United States and suppression expenses have tripled between 2002 and 2012 compared to the decade prior. Loss of property to wildfire has outpaced efforts to reduce wildfire risk through thinning and prescribed burning. Although wildfire risk is an increasingly global problem, its growing urgency in the Western United States - partially attributed to residential expansion into fire-prone...

The vapor permeability (or equivalently the vapor diffusion resistance factor) and the capillary absorption coefficient are frequently used as inputs to hygrothermal or heat, air, and moisture (HAM) models. However, it has been well documented that the methods used to determine these properties are sensitive to the operator, and wide variations in the properties have been reported in round-robin testing. This paper presented an investigation into how these errors can be minimized for porous materials by different edge sealing and also looked at whether automating these techniques can...

Hemlock woolly adelgid (HWA) (Adelges tsugae), an exotic forest pest, has infested millions of acres of eastern hemlock (Tsuga canadensis) forest from Georgia to Maine. Hemlock mortality has been linked to a loss in esthetics, declines in trout habitat, and an increase in safety hazards in public forests. Available options to control HWA vary in terms of cost and environmental impact. As infestations occur often on public lands, which are popular recreation destinations, understanding public knowledge of and attitudes toward HWA control options will be important to any successful control...

In this study we estimate selected visitors’ demand and value for recreational trips to settings such as developed vs. undeveloped sites in U.S. national forests in the Southern United States using the travel cost method. The setting-based approach allows for valuation of multi-activity trips to particular settings. The results from an adjusted Poisson lognormal estimator corrected for truncation and endogenous stratification reveal that economic value per trip estimates are higher for wilderness compared to day-use developed settings, overnight-use developed settings, and general forest...

Red oak (Quercus section Labatae)-sweetgum (Liquidambar styraciflua L.) stands growing on mid-south bottomland sites in the United States are well known for producing high-quality grade hardwood logs, but models for estimating the quantity and quality of standing grade wood in these stands have been unavailable. Prediction models to estimate total merchantable sawlog volume and volume by grade category within a standing tree are presented and discussed. Nonlinear regression, binary logistic regression, and probability distribution function techniques were used in the development of...

Pulp, paper, and paperboard mills consume close to 52 percent of southern roundwood, providing a significant market to southern forest landowners. Declining numbers of pulpwood-using mills and downward trends in mill capacity, however, present a growing challenge to the southern forest sector. Shrinking mill capacity affects rural communities that depend on mill demand for labor and other production inputs. This study investigates the effect of pulp mill closures on the regional and local economy, focusing on the spillover effects to forestry and forest products industry. Multiregional...