Fire and Environmental Research Applications Team

Joint Fire Science Program Funds Two FERA Projects in 2009

News has been received that the Joint Fire Science Program awarded funding for two FERA projects in 2009.

The first is an extension of previously-funded work on effects of fuel treatment on fire severity on the Tripod Complex fires in the northern Washington Cascade Range. Additional funding will extend results onto a broader landscape and range of forest types. Susan Prichard, a University of Washington cooperator, continues to lead this work.

Clint Wright, research forester with FERA, has been granted funding to study prescribed burning in southeastern forests. The focus will be on burning in different seasons of the year and the effect that may have on fuel dynamics such as fuel regrowth and accumulation, and understory structure and composition.

South Lake Tahoe Fuel Treatment Research Funded
The proposal by FERA ecologist Morris Johnson, “Evaluating Alternative Fuel Treatments in the South Shore Wildland Urban Interface Area,” has been recommended for funding by the Sierra Nevada Public Lands Management Act.  Fuels data and management alternatives will be developed to reduce fire hazard using an integration of the Forest Vegetation Simulator and its fire and fuels extension (FFE-FVS) and the Fuel Characteristic Classification System (FCCS). Alternatives will include various combinations of forest thinning and surface fuel treatments, including the effect of treatments over time. Work begins this summer and continue into 2011.

"Effects of Timber Harvest Following Wildfire in Western North America" Published by the PNW Research Station

No single decision-support system exists for selecting alternatives for postfire management – so states this general technical report on management after fire. The type of forest landscape determines the ways fire and logging may change an area after a wildfire. Detailed discussion of six ecosystems illustrates the complexity of fire regimes and that fire management requires a clear regional focus that recognizes where conflicts might exist between fire hazard reduction and resource needs. FERA’s David L. Peterson is the senior author.

Region 6 Workshop Scheduled
Staff of the U.S. Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Region, is sponsoring a workshop introducing the Fuel Characteristic Classification System (FCCS), Consume 3.0, and the photo series (including digital version). One day of field work and one-and-a-half days of presentations and hands-on use of software will take place June 2-4 at the Redmond Training Center in central Oregon.

Insects and Climate Presentation by Don McKenzie
FERA's Don McKenzie presented the talk "Wildfire in the West: Past, Present, and Future" at the Western Forest Insect Work Conference in Spokane, Washington, on March 24. The theme of the conference was insects, fire, and climate change in western forests.