Fire and Environmental Research Applications Team

SAN LUIS OBISPO WORKSHOP

The Southern California Regional Fuels Workshop was held in San Luis Obispo March 13-15, with a dozen attendees representing national forests from coastal California, the Sierras, and the Klamath River area along with The Nature Conservancy and state and local fire agencies. Along with learning the FCCS and Consume software, the group spent a day in the field assessing chaparral, coastal sage scrub, and oak woodland fuelbeds using the natural fuels photo series.

CONSUMER GUIDE TO FUELS MANAGEMENT TOOLS

A state-of science summary of tools currently available for management of vegetation and fuels is available online and, within days, will be available in print as well. Detailed summaries include a description of each tool, location where it can be obtained, relevant spatial scale, level of user knowledge required, data requirements, model outputs, application in fuel treatments, linkages to other tools, and availability of training and support. To request a print copy, visit http://www.fs.fed.us/pnw/publications/order.shtml

HAZEL BIRRENKOTT

Those of you who have worked with the FERA’s Research Team Coordinator, Hazel Birrenkott, know how effective and efficient she has been over the past 5 years keeping the team organized. She recently accepted another job, with promotion, and will be sorely missed.

MULTI-DAY PRESCRIBED FIRE IN EASTERN WASHINGTON

FERA, in collaboration with the AirFIRE team at the Pacific Wildland Fire Sciences Lab, will be working in the Naches Ranger District of the Wenatchee National Forest the next few months as a series of prescribed burns is carried out. FERA will collect pre- and post-fire fuels data to measure consumption which will then be used to measure emissions and smoke dispersion. This multi-day burn project brings together many parties in cooperation with the State of Washington to minimize smoke impacts and demonstrate that such burns can both meet air quality regulations and provide efficient fuel treatments. A variety of forest types in natural fuels will be involved.

NEW STUDY SHEDS LIGHT ON LONG-TERM EFFECTS OF LOGGING AFTER WILDFIRE

The effects of timber harvest following wildfire shows that the potential for a recently-burned forest to reburn can be high with or without logging according to a recent study in the journal Forest Ecology and Management. The research results demonstrate that the likelihood of a severe reburn is affected by the timing – not just the amount –of fuel accumulation after fire.

The study, led by James McIver of Oregon State University and Roger Ottmar of the Pacific Northwest Research Station/Forest Service, examined fuel accumulation with and without logging 3 years after a large wildfire in the Blue Mountains of northeast Oregon.

PRESENTATIONS IN AUSTRIA

Don McKenzie will chair the session “Spatial and Temporal Patterns of Wildfire: Models, Theory, Reality” at the 2007 European Geosciences Union General Assembly in Vienna, Austria April 15-23. He will be presenting three aspects of PNW’s research on fire disturbance in ecosystems: (1) historical fire regimes in ecosystems needing restoration, (2) stochastic modeling of fire using mesoscale meteorology, and (3) smoldering combustion of biomass in wildfires.