Fire and Environmental Research Applications Team

RX COMBUSTION-ATMOSPHERIC DYNAMICS RESEARCH EXPERIMENT A GRAND SUCCESS

Individuals and fire research teams came together the first week in March together to collect data on prescribed burns in the southeastern United States. The teams documented fire-atmospheric dynamics on 6 prescribed fires during 8 days in southern woodland fuelbed types on Elgin Air Force Base, Florida and the Joseph Jones Ecological Research Center, Georgia.

Roger Ottmar led the fuels team, and Bob Vihnanek and the field crew collected data on fuels consumption. Data will be consolidated the data and will result in a series of peer-reviewed publication on the results.

The Discovery Channel collected interviews and footage and developed a 7-minute segment that aired March 18 during their broadcast of the “Daily Planet”.

http://www.fs.fed.us/pnw/fera/research/targeted/rxcadre.shtml

PRESCRIBED FIRES IN SAN BERNARDINO NATIONAL FOREST AID SHRUB CONSUMPTION STUDY

FERA's Kyle Jacobson make a quick to trip to southern late in March to gather some last minute moisture data at pre-positioned fuel consumption plots in the San Bernardino National Forest before their ongoing prescribed burn made it to those sites. This data will help improve shrub consumption data for the Consume 3.0 software. An interesting aspect of this burn was that a blog was created by the burners themselves as a source of information before, during, and after the fire. FERA's participation is mentioned on page 2 of that website.

http://www.wrightwoodcalif.com/forum/index.php?PHPSESSID
=e148ee1ae6628d89d076087fd3f93a9d&topic=11105.15

ALPINE TREELINE OF WESTERN NORTH AMERICA: LINKING ORGANISM-TO-LANDSCPAE DYNAMICS

Factors affecting forest-tundra ecotones across the western North America -- including climate and microsite factors -- are discussed in this work published by the journal Physical Geography. David L. Peterson was one of over a dozen authors who contributed to this paper.
Abstract [.html] Limited access

MEXICO PHOTO SERIES PUBLISHED

Fuels of the montane subtropical forests of the Sierra Madre del Sur, and temperate forests and montane shrubland of the Northern Sierra Madre Oriental were collected, and a photo series on this region has been recently published by the University of Washington.

This stereo photo series is designed to help users to appraise fuel and vegetation conditions for fire management in forests of Mexico.

Funding for the field work and publication was provided by the U.S. Agency for International Development (Latin America and the Caribbean Bureau and the Mexico Mission) and U.S. Forest Service International Programs. The work was done by the FERA team and Mexican collaborators from the University of Guadalajara's Manantlán Institute of Ecology and Conservation of Biodiversity, Universidad Autonoma Agraria Antonio Narro, Fondo Mexicano para la Conservación de la Naturaleza, Comision Nacional de Areas Naturales Protegidas, and Comision Nacional Forestal.

http://www.fs.fed.us/pnw/fera/research/fuels/photo_series/index.shtml

DEPARTMENT OF DEFENSE LAND MANAGERS LEARN SUITE OF FERA TOOLS

Fort Gordon Army Base, in northeastern Georgia, was the site of the most recent 3-day workshop teaching land managers about the suite of tools – photo series, FCCS, and Consume – designed to help them reach their objectives in prescribed burning. Participants were mostly employees of the Department of Defense; others were from The Nature Conservancy and the Forest Service.