HR: 0800h
AN: B11D-0781    [Abstracts]
TI: Effects of Pre-Fire Fuels Treatments on Post-Fire Burn Severity on the 2007 Fires in the Northern Rocky Mountains, USA
AU: * Hudak, A T
EM: ahudak@fs.fed.us
AF: USFS Rocky Mountain Research Station, Forestry Sciences Lab 1221 South Main St., Moscow, ID 83843, United States
AU: Morgan, P
EM: pmorgan@uidaho.edu
AF: University of Idaho Dept. of Forest Resources, PO Box 441133, Moscow, ID 83844-1133, United States
AU: Robichaud, P R
EM: probichaud@fs.fed.us
AF: USFS Rocky Mountain Research Station, Forestry Sciences Lab 1221 South Main St., Moscow, ID 83843, United States
AU: Lewis, S A
EM: sarahlewis@fs.fed.us
AF: USFS Rocky Mountain Research Station, Forestry Sciences Lab 1221 South Main St., Moscow, ID 83843, United States
AU: Evans, J S
EM: jevans02@fs.fed.us
AF: USFS Rocky Mountain Research Station, Forestry Sciences Lab 1221 South Main St., Moscow, ID 83843, United States
AB: Climate change may be contributing to regional warming and drying trends that are increasing the size and severity of wildfires. Regardless if climate is a factor, the escalating costs of fire suppression and post-fire rehabilitation on the many large fires of recent decades have driven a national effort to reduce hazardous fuels across large areas, particularly those in the wildland-urban interface (WUI). Nationally, concern is especially focused on the numerous large wildfires currently burning in the Northern Rocky Mountains with a need for rapid science-based assessment of burn severity, even as fires and fire suppression efforts continue. Our objective is to assess if and how well various fuels reduction treatments applied pre-fire mitigated burn severity measured in the field immediately post-fire. We will obtain data from the incident command teams, including fire weather, daily fire progression maps, and where strategic and tactical fire suppression measures were applied. Location and type of fuels treatment as well as data on local vegetation type, structure, and fuels will be obtained from local management agencies and national databases. We will pair our sampled field plots in treated and burned areas with those not treated and burned in similar stand and topographic conditions across three or more large forest fires. Our analysis is both quantitative and qualitative, and linked with efforts to assess fuel treatment effects on fire behavior and ease of fire suppression. We report specifically on whether various fuels treatments are mitigating fire effects on soil (e.g., char, percent exposed, infiltration rate, water repellency) and vegetation (e.g., scorch, tree mortality, understory abundance, recovery). We discuss which fuels treatments work and which do not work, and the extent to which fire weather and other factors beyond the control of fire managers may determine whether or not fuels treatments are effectively mitigating severe fire effects.
DE: 0439 Ecosystems, structure and dynamics (4815)
DE: 0468 Natural hazards
DE: 0476 Plant ecology (1851)
DE: 0480 Remote sensing
DE: 0496 Water quality
SC: Biogeosciences [B]
MN: 2007 Fall Meeting