Treesearch

Whitebark pine, a geographically widespread upper subalpine tree species, exists largely within federally designated wilderness areas that are afforded greater protection as compared to surrounding public and privately owned lands (Box 1). Nevertheless, climate change, associated disturbances, and white pine blister rust are causing an increase in tree mortality of this species across most of its range. Because of the multitude of ongoing and emerging threats, the United States Fish and Wildlife Service published a final rule (87 FR 76882) to list whitebark pine as a federally threatened...

Forest fires present significant global risks, leading to loss of life, community displacement, and extensive damage to property and the environment, with substantial economic and social consequences. Propagation of wildland fires can be divided into two categories: surface and crown fires. This study aims to identify threshold parameters that influence the transition from surface to crown fire, helping fire managers prevent manageable fires from escalating into uncontrollable crown fires. This study conducted pine forest simulations using the physics-based fire model Fire Dynamics...

Background. Prevailing American wildland fire modelling systems fail to predict fire growth in urban areas due to the absence of burnable urban fuels. Aims. This research aims to identify fuel models that optimise fire spread in urban areas relative to a hypothetical fire spread model derived from observations of recent urban fires. Methods. A target Rate of Spread (RoS) is derived from observations of seven urban conflagrations to anchor the model to absolute RoS. Exhaustive parameter sweeps are used to identify combinations of fuel variables that result in optimal performance. Key...

Slash pile burning is a commonly used practice for disposing of unmerchantable forest residues resulting from forest thinning and timber harvest to lower wildfire intensity and risk, but can also generate significant greenhouse gas (GHG) and particulate matter (PM2.5) emissions. These effects of pile burning generate costs that are rarely taken into account in forest management budgets, expenses that could significantly affect decision-making if considered. This study quantifies those external costs of pile burning in the Deschutes National Forest in central Oregon, relating modeled...

Practitioners know temperatures and sea levels will continue to rise, but skillful projections of exactly how climate change will manifest locally are not available to help make decisions now. Despite this uncertainty, decisions that reduce risks and improve resilience to future climate change are being made. This chapter details tangible ways managers, stakeholders, and decision-makers are incorporating climate change in planning and decision-making efforts. We draw from real-world examples that encompass grazing management decisions under drought; assessing future risk to national forest...

Wildfire suppression is shaped by a complex interplay of environmental conditions, resource allocation and management strategies.Examining the containment of the 2021 Schneider Springs Fire in the Eastern Cascades of Washington State, USA, we emphasise critical roles of variable selection, representative sampling and suppression-specific factors.Using descriptive, predictive and causal models, we assessed the influence of weather conditions, terrain features, personnel availability, tree canopy cover, fire containment lines, and previously identified ‘best available’ containment features.Hi...

Species range maps and georeferenced records of species occurrences supply complementary information about where species occur. I applied range maps and georeferenced records to examine intersection between range maps and the most certain and less certain locations of georeferenced records (i.e., coordinates can have an associated field of coordinate uncertainty in meters), intersection between an alternative range map product and georeferenced records, and areas of range maps relative to areas predicted by species distribution models from georeferenced records or range maps, with varying...

Repeated high-severity fire is threatening forest resilience in dry and mesic forests of the Sierra Nevada and southern Cascades of California, USA. While impacts to plant communities have been described, the belowground effects of this fire regime change are less known. Here, we: (1) describe trends in reburn activity in the Sierra Nevada and southern Cascades, (2) conduct a case study on the effect of repeated high-severity fire on soil biogeochemistry within Plumas National Forest, California, and (3) propose a conceptual framework to describe hypothetical belowground effects of...

Smoke plume dynamics involve various smoke processes and mechanics in the atmosphere and provide the scientific foundation for the development of tools to simulate and predict smoke and its environmental and human impacts. The increasing occurrence of wildfires and the demands for more extensive application of prescribed fires in the U.S. have posed great challenges and immediate actions for advancing smoke plume dynamics and improving smoke predictions and impact assessments to mitigate smoke impacts. Numerous efforts have been made recently to address these needs and challenges. This...

The Northern Gulf of America (NGOA, formerly known as Northern Gulf of Mexico) is a key economic region for seafood production, recreation, and marine transportation. This study compared evapotranspiration (ET) and water yield in the Sabine River Basin (SRB) and Pearl River Basin (PRB) along the NGOA, focusing on coastal watersheds between two 40-year weather scenarios: past (1985–2024) and future (2025–2064). The analysis was conducted using the HAWQS (Hydrologic and Water Quality System) model, along with Mann-Kendall (M-K) and Kolmogorov-Smirnov (K-S) tests. Simulations showed a...