Current Research

Assessing the mid- to long-term impact of fuel treatments with empirical data
We have been gathering field data prior to and up to 15 years post-treatment across the National Forests in California to determine the length of time that fuel treatments are effective, quantify forest, fuel and vegetation dynamics, and assess prescribed fire effects on carbon stocks.

Spatial and temporal assessment of fires in the Pacific Northwest
Wildfire can be both a threat to forest health and as an essential tool to achieve ecological restoration and promote resilient forests in the face of a changing climate. The objectives of this research are to define how much characteristic and uncharacteristic fire the Pacific Northwest is currently experiencing from the perspective of ecosystems' historic fire regimes, and quantify the extent current fires are “restorative”.

Wildfire risk assessments for various values at risk
Objectives of this research are to incorporate large-fire spread and intensity into a quantitative risk framework, and apply the framework on fire-prone federally managed lands to test several hypotheses regarding fire spread and effects on federal land management strategies such as fuel treatment effectiveness and large fire cost savings.

Characterizing burn severity using multiple methods - Pole Creek Fire
The most common approach to characterize burn severity across large landscapes is to use remotely sensed data, satellite imagery or LiDAR, from before and after a fire burns. However, these methods can be limited in dense forest stands because of their inability to see the impact of fire on all levels of vegetation. We collected field data to calibrate the remotely sensed data and to assess whether remotely sensed data accurately predicts burn severity.

Assessment of the National Forest Service fuel treatment program
We are using nationally available geospatial data to quantify the national fuels treatment program accomplishments to answer see if are we treating enough fuels to promote/maintain resilient landscapes, and are we treating fuels in the correct locations to reduce wildfire hazard?

Research Interests

My general research interests include characterizing fire behavior at multiple scales, burn severity patterns, fuel treatment effects and effectiveness, and wildfire risk analyses. I am involved in both plot-level empirical assessments and geospatial analyses using pre-existing data for large landscapes. In particular I've focused on understanding how fuel treatments and wildfires have altered vegetation and fuel loads overtime, potential wildfire behavior, and risk to values and assets.

Education

• University of California - Berkeley, Ph.D. Environmental Science Policy and Management 2008
• University of California - Berkeley, M.S. Environmental Science Policy and Management 2005
• University of California - Davis, B.S. Evolution and Ecology 2001

Professional Experience

Professional Organizations

• Association for Fire Ecology, Member (2008 - Current)
• International Association of Wildland Fire, Member (2006 - Current)
• Xi Sigma Pi, Beta Chapter, Member (2006 - Current)
• Student Association For Fire Ecology, Co-Chair (2003 - 2008)

Awards & Recognition

Featured Publications & Products

• Vaillant, Nicole M.; Noonan-Wright, Erin K.; Reiner, Alicia L.; Ewell, Carol M.; Rau, Benjamin M.; Fites-Kaufman, Josephine A.; Dailey, Scott N. 2015. Fuel accumulation and forest structure change following hazardous fuel reduction treatments throughout California.
• Vaillant, Nicole M.; Ager, Alan A.; Anderson, John. 2013. ArcFuels10 system overview.
• Ager, Alan; Vaillant, Nicole, Finney. 2010. A comparison of landscape fuel treatment strategies to mitigate wildland fire risk in the urban interface and preserve old forest structure.

Publications

• White, Rachel ; Johnson, Morris ; Vaillant, Nicole ; Fried, Jeremy . 2018. Fuel treatments: Are we doing enough.
• Vaillant, Nicole M.; Reinhardt, Elizabeth D. 2017. An evaluation of the Forest Service Hazardous Fuels Treatment Program Are we treating enough to promote resiliency or reduce hazard.
• Sankey, Joel B.; Kreitler, Jason; Hawbaker, Todd J.; McVay, Jason L.; Miller, Mary Ellen; Mueller, Erich R.; Vaillant, Nicole M.; Lowe, Scott E.; Sankey, Temuulen T. 2017. Climate, wildfire, and erosion ensemble foretells more sediment in western USA watersheds.
• McCarley, T. Ryan; Kolden, Crystal A.; Vaillant, Nicole M.; Hudak, Andrew T.; Smith, Alistair M. S.; Kreitler, Jason. 2017. Landscape-scale quantification of fire-induced change in canopy cover following mountain pine beetle outbreak and timber harvest.
• McCarley, T. Ryan; Kolden, Crystal A.; Vaillant, Nicole M.; Hudak, Andrew T.; Smith, Alistair M. S.; Wing, Brian M.; Kellogg, Bryce S.; Kreitler, Jason. 2017. Multi-temporal LiDAR and Landsat quantification of fire-induced changes to forest structure.
• Vaillant, Nicole M.; Kolden, Crystal A.; Smith, Alistair M. S. 2016. Assessing landscape vulnerability to wildfire in the USA.
• Ager, Alan A.; A. Day, Michelle; Finney, Mark A.; Vance-Borland, Ken; Vaillant, Nicole M. 2014. Analyzing the transmission of wildfire exposure on a fire-prone landscape in Oregon, USA.
• Vaillant, Nicole M.; Ager, Alan A. 2014. ArcFuels: an ArcMap toolbar for fuel treatment planning and wildfire risk assessment.
• Noonan-Wright, Erin K.; Vaillant, Nicole M.; Reiner, Alicia L. 2014. The effectiveness and limitations of fuel modeling using the fire and fuels extension to the Forest Vegetation Simulator.
• Alexander, Martin E.; Cruz, Miguel G.; Vaillant, Nicole M. 2014. Toward improving our application and understanding of crown fire behavior.
• Vaillant, Nicole M.; Ager, Alan A.; Anderson, John; Miller, Lauren. 2013. ArcFuels User Guide and Tutorial: for use with ArcGIS 9.
• Thompson, Matthew P.; Hand, Michael S.; Gilbertson-Day, Julie W.; Vaillant, Nicole M.; Nalle, Darek J. 2013. Hazardous fuel treatments, suppression cost impacts, and risk mitigation.
• Vaillant, Nicole M.; Reiner, Alicia L.; Noonan-Wright, Erin K. 2013. Prescribed fire effects on field-derived and simulated forest carbon stocks over time.
• Thompson, Matthew P.; Vaillant, Nicole M.; Haas, Jessica R.; Gebert, Krista M.; Stockmann, Keith D. 2013. Quantifying the potential impacts of fuel treatments on wildfire suppression costs.
• Thompson, Matthew P.; Vaillant, Nicole M.; Haas, Jessica R.; Gebert, Krista M.; Stockmann, Keith D. 2013. Quantifying the potential impacts of fuel treatments on wildfire suppression costs volume.
• Ager, Alan A.; Vaillant, Nicole M.; McMahan, Andrew. 2013. Restoration of fire in managed forests: a model to prioritize landscapes and analyze tradeoffs.
• Ager, Alan A.; Vaillant, Nicole M.; Finney, Mark A.; Preisler, Haiganoush K. 2012. Analyzing wildfire exposure and source sink relationships on a fire prone forest landscape.
• Reiner, Alicia L.; Vaillant, Nicole M.; Dailey, Scott N. 2012. Mastication and prescribed fire influences on tree mortality and predicted fire behavior in ponderosa pine.
• Ager, Alan A.; Vaillant, Nicole M.; Owens, David E.; Brittain, Stuart; Hamann, Jeff. 2012. Overview and example application of the Landscape Treatment Designer.
• Thompson, Matthew P.; Ager, Alan A.; Finney, Mark A.; Calkin, Dave E.; Vaillant, Nicole M. 2012. The science and opportunity of wildfire risk assessment (Chapter 6).
• Ager, Alan A.; Vaillant, Nicole M.; Finney, Mark A. 2011. Integrating fire behavior models and geospatial analysis for wildland fire risk assessment and fuel management planning.
• Reiner, Alicia L.; Vaillant, Nicole M.; Fites-Kaufman, JoAnn; Dailey, Scott N. 2009. Mastication and prescribed fire impacts on fuels in a 25-year old ponderosa pine plantation, southern Sierra Nevada.

Citations of non US Forest Service Publications

• Sankey, J.B.; McVay, J.; Kreitler, J.; Hawbaker, T.J.; Vaillant, N.M.; Lowe S. 2015. Predicting watershed post-fire sediment yield with the InVEST sediment retention model: accuracy and uncertainties. Proceedings of papers of the 5th Federal Interagency Hydrologic Modeling Conference and the 10th Federal Interagency Sedimentation Conference.
  
  Alexander, M.E.; Cruz, M.G.; Vaillant, N.M. 2014. Introduction to the special issue on crown fire behavior in conifer forests. Fire Management Today 73(4): 6-7.
  
  Alexander, M.E.; Cruz, M.G.; Vaillant, N.M. 2014. Toward improving our application and understanding of crown fire behavior. Fire Management Today 73(4): 46-47.
  
  Vaillant, N.M.; Ewell, C.M.; Fites-Kaufman, J.A. 2014. Capturing crown fire behavior on wildland fires—the Fire Behavior Assessment Team in action. Fire Management Today 73(4): 41-45.
  
  Vaillant, N.M.; Stephens, S.L. 2009. Fire history of a lower elevation Jeffrey pine-mixed conifer forest in the eastern Sierra Nevada. Fire Ecology. 5(3):4-19.
  
  Vaillant, N.M.; Fites-Kaufman, J.; Reiner, A.L.; Noonan-Wright, E.K.; Dailey, S.N. 2009. Effect of fuel treatments on fuels and potential fire behavior in California National Forests. Fire Ecology. 5(2):14-29.
  
  Vaillant, N.M.; Fites-Kaufman, J.; Stephens, S.L. 2009. Effectiveness of prescribed fire as a fuel treatment in Californian coniferous forests. International Journal of Wildland Fire. 18:165-175

Research Highlights

Highlight	Title	Year
PNW-2016-270	An Evaluation of the Forest Service Hazardous Fuels Treatment Program Are fuel management treatments implemented broadly enough as well as sited correctly?A core goal of the Cohesive Strategy is to manage fuels at ...	2016
PNW-2015-64	Scientists Assess Effectiveness of Fuels Reduction Treatments in California Fuel treatments are used to abate undesirable fire behavior and effects. Short-term effectiveness of fuel treatments to alter fire behavior and ...	2015