Fire and Environmental Research Applications Team

Jim Cronan

Jim is a research scientist with the University of Washington working with a number of federal agencies to improve fire planning through research on fire behavior, fuels, and fire ecology.

Research Interests

• Disturbance ecology
• Boreal fire history
• Fire behavior

Current Project Summaries

Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest Fuelbed Succession Model

To assist Clint Wright in the development of his Ph.D. dissertation, Jim is using the fuelbed map of the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest as a test case to develop a simulation model for FCCS fuelbed succession. The goal of this model is to generate scenarios that aid in the understanding of how fuel management options influence vegetation composition and fire risk of the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest over spatial and temporal scales.

Boreal Fire History Project

The goal of this project is collect, summarize, and synthesize existing boreal fire history data for Alaska in order to provide land managers with up to date and easily accessible fire history information. Specific efforts of this project include the creation of a database made available to managers that includes tree age and fire scar data that were previously unused or were used for other non fire history projects, a review of the Alaska large fire database to correct errors and add missing records, and a comprehensive literature review that will detail boreal fire history in Alaska.

Curriculum Vitae [.pdf][.html]