Companion Studies to Tripod Complex Fire Research
Team Lead: Susan
Prichard
Severity in Regenerating Stands
Studies have shown significant relationships between fire severity
and fuel treatment residue, but have focused on forest types with
mixed-severity and low fire regimes that are not typical of all
dry forest systems in the West.
The Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest on the east side of the
Cascade Range in Washington has implemented silvicultural treatments
to increase regeneration and reduce fire risk, including several
fuel reduction strategies to alter fire behavior: thinning, prescribed
fire, and small clearcuts. Clearcuts, also called regeneration cuts,
coupled with prescribed fire, were implemented specifically to promote
regeneration of tree species, including ponderosa pine, Douglas-fir,
subalpine fir, Engelmann spruce, and western larch.
In 2006, the 80,000-ha Tripod Complex Fire burned through many
of these fuel-treatment and regeneration cut areas, providing an
opportunity to analyze the relationship between forest management
and wildfire dynamics.
University of Washington graduate student Christina
Lyons-Tinsley, along with FERA's field crew, analyzed fire
severity in regenerating stands to determine how fuels and other
factors contributed to surface fire intensity and spread.
Lyons-Tinsley, C. 2009. Forest heterogeneity and surface fires affect wildfire severity in a mixed conifer forest, eastside Cascade Range, Washington, USA. Seattle, WA: University of Washington. M.S. Thesis
Lyons-Tinsley, C and D.L. Peterson. 2012. Surface fuel treatments in young, regenerating stands affect wildfire severity in a mixed conifer forest, eastside Cascade Range, Washington, USA. Forest Ecology and Management. 270: 117-125.
Impact of Fuel Treatments on Carbon Emissions
Over the summers of 2008 and 2009, the NASA Ames DEVELOP Program worked on projects in conjunction with the Okanogan-Wenatchee National Forest Service in eastern Washington. The 2009 project used ground-based measurements and satellite imagery to evaluate the impact of fuel treatments on carbon emissions during the Tripod Complex fire. Two fuel treatments -- partial harvests alone, and with prescribed burns -- were selected. Ground-based measurements were sampled on thirty-five, 30-m2 sites inside the Tripod fire scar to determine forest biomass. The biomass measurements were converted to carbon and compared to vegetation indices and gross primary productivity derived from MODIS and Landsat satellite imagery to evaluate the change in carbon sequestration rates of the ecosystem pre and post fire. The net carbon flux into the atmosphere from the wildfire was determined by comparing satellite measurements before and after the fire for each fuel treatment type.
DEVELOP students worked with Dr. Susan Prichard of the Pacific Wildland Fire Sciences Laboratory. NASA mentors associated with DEVELOP at Ames are Dr. Jay Skiles and Cindy Schmidt of the Ecosystem Science and Technology Branch.
Newcomer, M.; Delgado, D.; Gantenbein, C.; Wang, T.; Schiffman, B.; Prichard, S.; Schmidt, C.; Skiles, J.W. 2009. Burn severity assessment in the Okanogan-Wenatchee Forest using NASA satellite missions. http://www.asprs.org/a/publications/proceedings/baltimore09/0069.pdf. (20 June 2013)/
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