Post-fire logging reduces surface woody fuels up to four decades following wildfire

Peterson, David W.; Dodson, Erich Kyle; Harrod, Richy J.

doi:10.1016/j.foreco.2014.11.016

Cited by 54 publications

(48 citation statements)

References 41 publications

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“…Ecoregional prescriptions should identify areas where post-disturbance silviculture or burning may be appropriate/inappropriate, and where wildfires can contribute to restoration (Allen et al 2002;Reinhardt et al 2008;Peterson et al 2015). Ecoregional prescriptions should provide clear guidance for reestablishing large-scale ecoregional connectivity for wide-ranging and migratory aquatic and terrestrial species.…”

Section: Implications Emerging From All Seven Principlesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Restoring fire-prone Inland Pacific landscapes: seven core principles

et al. 2015

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Context More than a century of forest and fire management of Inland Pacific landscapes has transformed their successional and disturbance dynamics. Regional connectivity of many terrestrial and aquatic habitats is fragmented, flows of some ecological and physical processes have been altered in space and time, and the frequency, size and intensity of many disturbances that configure these habitats have been altered. Current efforts to address these impacts yield a small footprint in comparison to wildfires and insect outbreaks. Moreover, many current projects emphasize thinning and fuels reduction within individual forest stands, while overlooking large-scale habitat connectivity and disturbance flow issues. Methods We provide a framework for landscape restoration, offering seven principles. We discuss their implication for management, and illustrate their application with examples. Results Historical forests were spatially heterogeneous at multiple scales. Heterogeneity was the result of variability and interactions among native ecological -015-0218-0 patterns and processes, including successional and disturbance processes regulated by climatic and topographic drivers. Native flora and fauna were adapted to these conditions, which conferred a measure of resilience to variability in climate and recurrent contagious disturbances. Conclusions To restore key characteristics of this resilience to current landscapes, planning and management are needed at ecoregion, local landscape, successional patch, and tree neighborhood scales. Restoration that works effectively across ownerships and allocations will require active thinking about landscapes as socio-ecological systems that provide services to people within the finite capacities of ecosystems. We focus attention on landscape-level prescriptions as foundational to restoration planning and execution.Landscape Ecol (2015) 30:1805-1835 DOI 10.1007/s10980

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Section: Implications Emerging From All Seven Principlesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Restoring fire-prone Inland Pacific landscapes: seven core principles

et al. 2015

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“…Where this is not true (as in cases of high-severity reburn potential, very large and homogeneous high-severity burn patch sizes, and where desirable seed sources are well beyond probable dispersal distances), salvage and/or planting operations may be reasonable options, and could be planned and conducted so as to reduce disruption of early successional diversity (Lindenmayer et al, 2004;Noss et al, 2006;Long et al, 2014a). Where they are appropriate, salvage operations should focus on the primary fuels that are the reburn concern, i.e., the smaller understory shade-tolerant trees that comprised the ingrowth over the period of fire exclusion (Peterson et al, 2015). Salvaging large trees provides a large economic benefit but has no known ecological benefit, and significant ecological costs (Donato et al, 2013;Lindenmayer et al, 2004;Noss et al, 2006;Long et al, 2014a).…”

Section: Concerns With Overabundant Early Successional Forest Conditionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Tamm Review: Management of mixed-severity fire regime forests in Oregon, Washington, and Northern California

Hessburg

Spies

Perry

et al. 2016

Forest Ecology and Management

170

190

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a b s t r a c tIncreasingly, objectives for forests with moderate-or mixed-severity fire regimes are to restore successionally diverse landscapes that are resistant and resilient to current and future stressors. Maintaining native species and characteristic processes requires this successional diversity, but methods to achieve it are poorly explained in the literature. In the Inland Pacific US, large, old, early seral trees were a key historical feature of many young and old forest successional patches, especially where fires frequently occurred. Large, old trees are naturally fire-tolerant, but today are often threatened by dense understory cohorts that create fuel ladders that alter likely post-fire successional pathways. Reducing these understories can contribute to resistance by creating conditions where canopy trees will survive disturbances and climatic stressors; these survivors are important seed sources, soil protectors, and critical habitat elements. Historical timber harvesting has skewed tree size and age class distributions, created hard edges, and altered native patch sizes. Manipulating these altered forests to promote development of larger patches of older, larger, and more widely-spaced trees with diverse understories will increase landscape resistance to severe fires, and enhance wildlife habitat for underrepresented conditions.Closed-canopy, multi-layered patches that develop in hot, dry summer environments are vulnerable to droughts, and they increase landscape vulnerability to insect outbreaks and severe wildfires. These same patches provide habitat for species such as the northern spotted owl, which has benefited from increased habitat area. Regional and local planning will be critical for gauging risks, evaluating trade-offs, and restoring dynamics that can support these and other species. The goal will be to manage for heterogeneous landscapes that include variably-sized patches of (1) young, middle-aged, and old, closedcanopy forests growing in upper montane, northerly aspect, and valley bottom settings, (2) a similar diversity of open-canopy, fire-tolerant patches growing on ridgetops, southerly aspects, and lower montane settings, and (3) significant montane chaparral and grassland areas. Tools to achieve this goal http://dx

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“…This assumption is accompanied by recommendations for increased logging-especially "mechanical thinning"-on National Forest lands, intended to create low-density forests and reduce the potential for high-severity fires (Jones et al 2016, Stephens et al 2016. Post-fire logging and tree plantation establishment have also been promoted by the U.S. Forest Service in high-severity fire areas in an attempt to recover and restore mature, green forest cover (Peterson et al 2015). However, these results and other research (Lee et al 2013), indicate that post-fire logging of complex early seral forests is not consistent with California spotted owl conservation and mechanical thinning has been associated with dramatic and rapid population declines for this subspecies in the Sierra Nevada (Stephens et al 2014).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of post-fire logging on California spotted owl occupancy

Hanson¹,

Bond²,

Lee³

2018

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In fire-adapted forest ecosystems around the world, there has been growing concern about adverse impacts of post-fire logging on native biodiversity and ecological processes. This is also true in conifer forests of California, U.S.A. which are home to a rare and declining owl subspecies, the California spotted owl (Strix occidentalis occidentalis). While there has been recent concern about the California spotted owl occupancy in large fire areas where some territories have substantial high-severity fire effects, the influence of post-fire logging on the California spotted owl occupancy has been investigated very little, leading to some uncertainty about interpretation of conflicting results in different large fires. Research has found these owls preferentially select high-severity fire areas, characterised by high levels of snags and native shrubs, for foraging in forests that were not logged after fire, suggesting that removal of this foraging habitat might impact occupancy. The authors assessed the effect of post-fire logging and high-severity fire, on occupancy of this subspecies in eight large fire areas, within spotted owl sites with two different levels of high-severity fire effects. They found a significant adverse effect of such logging and no effect of high-severity fire alone. These results indicate it is post-fire logging, not large fires themselves, that poses a conservation threat to this imperilled species. RESEARCH ARTICLE Launched to accelerate biodiversity conservation A peer-reviewed open-access journalChad T. Hanson et al. / Nature Conservation 24: 93-105 (2018) 94

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Post-fire logging reduces surface woody fuels up to four decades following wildfire

Cited by 54 publications

References 41 publications

Restoring fire-prone Inland Pacific landscapes: seven core principles

Restoring fire-prone Inland Pacific landscapes: seven core principles

Tamm Review: Management of mixed-severity fire regime forests in Oregon, Washington, and Northern California

Effects of post-fire logging on California spotted owl occupancy

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