Efficacy of resource objective wildfires for restoration of ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa) forests in northern Arizona

Huffman, David W.; Meador, Andrew J. Sánchez; Stoddard, Michael T.; Crouse, Joseph E.; Roccaforte, John Paul

doi:10.1016/j.foreco.2016.12.036

Cited by 42 publications

(38 citation statements)

References 65 publications

Supporting

Mentioning

Contrasting

Order By: Relevance

“…Restoration fire in forests that historically experienced frequent fire resulted in forest structure and composition similar to the pre‐fire suppression conditions (Collins and Stephens , Huffman et al. ), and fire severity patterns that are within the natural range of variation of western coniferous forests (Meyer ). Collectively, evidence from modeling and empirical studies suggests that by managing more acceptable wildfire today, that is, restoration fire, managers can increase forest resilience to disturbance and reduce the occurrence of extensive and severe fires in the future.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Wildfires managed for restoration enhance ecological resilience

et al. 2018

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Expanding the footprint of natural fire has been proposed as one potential solution to increase the pace of forest restoration programs in fire‐adapted landscapes of the western USA. However, studies that examine the long‐term socio‐ecological trade‐offs of expanding natural fire to reduce wildfire risk and create fire resilient landscapes are lacking. We used the model Envision to examine the outcomes that might result from increased area burned by what we call “restoration” wildfire in a landscape where the ecological benefits of wildfire are known, but the need to suppress high‐risk fires that threaten human values is also evident. Our study area, in the eastern Cascades of Oregon, USA, includes the Deschutes National Forest where large tracts of mixed conifer forest structure are outside the historical range of variation and characterized by multi‐layer, closed‐canopy stands. We found that simulation of one restoration wildfire per year in addition to high‐risk wildfires in the regular fire season and over the course of 50 yr resulted in a 23% increase in total area burned, but the same probability of fire‐on‐fire interactions. This translated into 0.3% of the national forest burned by restoration wildfire per year and had a small impact in area burned by high‐risk fires albeit more likely in extreme fire years. Smoke production doubled in the restoration scenario relative to the scenario without restoration wildfire, but still resulted in minimal smoke production in most years. Restoration fires burned with low‐ to mixed‐severity and led to a steady reduction in canopy cover and increase in resilient forest structure in dry‐forest types. Habitat for the federally protected northern spotted owl declined with the inclusion of restoration fire, while habitat for species that use recently burned forest stands (e.g., black‐backed woodpecker) increased. Our results suggest that restoration wildfire can improve forest resilience and contribute to restoration efforts in fire‐adapted forests, but there are trade‐offs (wildlife habitat, smoke, area burned in fire‐sensitive forest types), and the level of restoration fire use we simulated is unlikely to have a significant impact on the occurrence of high‐severity wildfires.

show abstract

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Wildfires managed for restoration enhance ecological resilience

et al. 2018

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

show abstract

“…In contrast, post-fire live overstory structure in low-severity areas generally remained above HRV, while in high-severity areas it was well below HRV. That moderate-severity burning was most effective at moving structural attributes to within HRV has also been documented for other dry conifer forests in the west [15,31,54].…”

Section: Live Overstory Structurementioning

confidence: 67%

“…Many managers, researchers, and others are interested in examining to what extent recent wildfires are advancing restoration goals in overly-dense, fire-excluded western dry conifer forests [31,[52][53][54][55]. Restoration treatments in these forests primarily aim to increase their resilience to future burning (sensu [56]) by creating open and heterogeneous overstory conditions that are unlikely to carry large-scale high-severity crown fire [34,57,58].…”

Section: Live Overstory Structurementioning

confidence: 99%

Overstory Structure and Surface Cover Dynamics in the Decade Following the Hayman Fire, Colorado

Fornwalt

Stevens‐Rumann

Collins

2018

Forests

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Abstract:The 2002 Hayman Fire burned with mixed-severity across a 400-ha dry conifer study site in Colorado, USA, where overstory tree and surface cover attributes had been recently measured on 20 0.1-ha permanent plots. We remeasured these plots repeatedly during the first post-fire decade to examine how the attributes changed through time and whether changes were influenced by fire severity. We found that most attributes were temporally dynamic and that fire severity shaped their dynamics. For example, low-severity plots experienced a modest reduction in live overstory density due to both immediate and delayed tree mortality, and no change in live overstory basal area through time; in contrast, high-severity plots experienced an immediate and total loss of live overstory density and basal area. Large snag density in low-severity plots did not vary temporally because snag recruitment balanced snag loss; however, in high-severity plots large snag density increased markedly immediately post-fire and then declined by about half by post-fire year ten as snags fell. Mineral soil cover increased modestly immediately post-fire in low-severity plots and substantially immediately post-fire in high-severity plots, but changed little in ensuing years for either severity class. By incorporating pre-fire and repeatedly-measured post-fire data for a range of severities, our study uniquely contributes to the current understanding of wildfire effects in dry conifer forests and should be of interest to managers, researchers, and others.

show abstract

“…However, field testing of this hypothesis may be difficult to implement, although some studies focused on tree structure and hazardous fuels are noted (Huffman et al. ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Prescribed fire regimes subtly alter ponderosa pine forest plant community structure

Kerns

Day

2018

Ecosphere

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

Prescribed fire is an active management tool used to address wildfire hazard and ecological concerns associated with fire exclusion and suppression over the past century. Despite widespread application in the United States, there is considerable inconsistency and lack of information regarding the extent to which specific outcomes are achieved and under what prescribed fire regimes, particularly in regard to ecological goals related to plant community structure. We quantify differences and patterns in plant functional group abundance, species richness and diversity, and other key forest components through time from a unique long‐term (15‐yr) experiment within the Malheur National Forest of Oregon. Treatments included five fire regimes: fall and spring 5‐yr burning, fall and spring single burn, and no burning. Original burns were conducted in the fall of 1997 and spring of 1998, and plant data were collected every five years starting in 2002. Many perennial plant group responses were neutral, subtle, and ephemeral. Total cover increased marginally in response to the first burn, but this response disappeared within a decade. Three 5‐yr reburns did not increase or decrease total plant cover, richness, or diversity. Some plant groups with fire resistant and resilient traits, such as annual forbs, exotic forbs, open bunchgrasses, and rhizomatous and resprouting perennials, showed some short‐term positive responses to initial burning and 1–2 reburns, but not 3. The moderately more severe fall burns generally impacted plant responses more than spring burning, but many patterns were legacies from the original higher severity burns. Burn frequency was more important for less severe spring burning. Overall, we document that most native perennial plant functional groups were able to resist or recover from burning and reburning, but did not necessarily strongly respond. This may be due to the importance of other overriding forcing factors and ecosystem inertia not easily overcome by very low‐severity prescribed burns. Results from our study are important for practitioners using prescribed fire to achieve biodiversity, conservation, and habitat goals that hinge on a vigorous native perennial plant response, as such outcomes are not certain even with frequent burn regimes.

show abstract

Efficacy of resource objective wildfires for restoration of ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa) forests in northern Arizona

Cited by 42 publications

References 65 publications

Wildfires managed for restoration enhance ecological resilience

Wildfires managed for restoration enhance ecological resilience

Overstory Structure and Surface Cover Dynamics in the Decade Following the Hayman Fire, Colorado

Prescribed fire regimes subtly alter ponderosa pine forest plant community structure

Contact Info

Product

Resources

About