Fire and Environmental Research Applications Team

Three Experimental Burns Helped to Integrate Fire Research Data Collection

In the first two weeks of February, 3 experimental burns were conducted on the Florida panhandle at Eglin Air Force Base for the Prescribed Fire Combustion and Atmospheric Dynamics Research Experiment (RxCADRE). This effort demonstrated the capacity for collaborative research and will provide a valuable data set for future fire behavior, consumption, and smoke model development and testing.

Prefire, active fire, and postfire collection efforts resulted in a complementary set of data that characterizes fuel loads and fuel consumption, total energy balance and mass transport of heat, coupled fire-atmospheric interactions, smoke emissions at the source and downwind from the fire, and first-order fire effects.  Methods included standard and ground-based LIDAR data collection, in situ measurements of energy, and remote sensing. FERA provided both the leadership, from Roger Ottmar, and fuels data collection by the FERA field crew.

All data from the research is being reviewed to determine its quality and will be stored in a repository such as the Smoke and Emission Model Intercomparison Project (SEMIP) and/or FRAMES.  Peer-reviewed publications from this event will integrate data across various aspects of the project.

Revision to Climate Change Resource Center Website

Information on the topic of wildland fire and climate change has been updated on the Climate Change Resource Center website. FERA’s Don McKenzie, working with Forest Service Research colleagues Faith Ann Heinsch and Warren Heilman, rewrote this synthesis to reflect the most current research.

Landscape Ecology of Fire

FERA’s Don McKenzie, along with colleagues Carol Miller and Don Falk, edited this new work and wrote several of the 12 chapters. The book is part of the prestigious Springer Ecological Studies series. The four parts of the book explore concepts and theory in the landscape ecology of fire, fire climatology and broad-scale controls on fire regimes, landscape fire dynamics and interactions with other disturbances and other ecological processes, and landscape fire management and policy in the context of climate and land-use change.

Recent Acceleration of Biomass Burning and Carbon Losses in Alaskan Forests and Peatlands

Roger Ottmar was one of 8 authors who commented on biomass burning and carbon losses in Alaska in the December 5, 2010 issue of Nature Geoscience. Examination of the depth of ground-layer combustion in 178 sites between 1983 and 2005 showed that the depth of burning increased late in the fire season in upland forests, but not in peatland and permafrost sites. Simulations of wildfire-induced carbon losses suggested that ground-layer combustion has accelerated regional carbon losses over the past decade, owing to increases in burn area and late season burning. As a result, soils in these black spruce stands have become a net source of carbon to the atmosphere, with carbon emissions far exceeding decadal intake.

Assistance to National Forests on Climate Change Adaptation Continues

Dave Peterson and Crystal Raymond continue their work to assist national forests across the country with information they need to better manage forests for expected effects of climate change. On January 19th and 20th they made presentations at a climate change adaptation workshop organized by the Willamette National Forest in Springfield, Oregon.  The week of January 24-28 they travelled to New Mexico for a workshop in Abiquiu organized by the Santa Fe and Carson National Forests. Dave Peterson presented strategies for adapting to climate change.