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Assessing
the Need, Costs, and Potential Benefits of Fuels Reduction Treatments
Issues:
- Millions of acres of western forests are at risk of uncharacteristically
severe fires.
- Ecological, social, and economic considerations are important
in evaluating treatment options for these lands.
Study Description:
This project will develop methods to use existing data
and modeling systems to evaluate forest conditions, establish
a suite of proposed treatments, estimate relative treatment costs,
and project forest conditions into the future. Forest Inventory
and Analysis data for New Mexico and Montana will be used in the
first case study to determine existing forest conditions. These
states were chosen because they both have recently completed inventories,
but the Montana industry is well adapted to using small diameter
wood while the New Mexico industry is not.
Objectives:
- Quantify existing conditions for major forest types and need
for hazard reduction treatment.
- Develop and compare alternative fuels reduction prescriptions.
- Determine treatment costs.
- Determine potential revenue from timber products generated
from harvest treatments.
- Compare the future mix of timber products under alternative
treatment scenarios
- Describe the potential for analyzing non-commodity resources.
 Expected Outcomes:
The methodologies developed during the study will be
widely applicable to federal, state, and private land managers
throughout the U.S.
The protocols will help resource managers develop analyses of
treatment needs over a wide range of spatial scales, and assess
the potential ecological and economic outcomes of these treatments
into the future.
Contacts:Jamie Barbour
or Roger Fight PNW
Station 503-808-2000. University of Montana Carl Fiedler 406-243-5602,
Chuck Keegan 406-243-5113.
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