Forest restoration and fuels reduction work: Different pathways for achieving success in the Sierra Nevada

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Forest restoration and fuels reduction work: Different pathways for achieving success in the Sierra Nevada

This paper examines a 20-year forest restoration study in the northern Sierra Nevada looking at changes in forest structure and composition, fuel accumulation, modeled fire behavior, intertree competition, and economics resulting from four treatment regimes: multiple applications of prescribed fire (Fire), multiple mechanical restoration thinnings (Mech), multiple mechanical restoration thinnings followed by prescribed fire (Mech + Fire), and untreated controls

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Biogeomorphic Responses to Wildfire in Fluvial Ecosystems

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Biogeomorphic Responses to Wildfire in Fluvial Ecosystems

Biogeomorphic Responses to Wildfire in Fluvial Ecosystems draws together interdisciplinary studies and reviews that highlight key insights important to support heterogeneity, biodiversity, and resilience in fluvial ecosystems (Florsheim et al., 2024).

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Prescribed fire and mastication reduced bark-beetle-caused pine mortality

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Prescribed fire and mastication reduced bark-beetle-caused pine mortality

This study analyzes data from a mixed-severity fire in the northern range of coast redwood to create a model for predicting postfire response of four redwood community plants.Mastication, thinning, and prescribed fire can help shift fire-prone forests to a structure more resilient to fire and other disturbances. However, the ability to evaluate treatment effectiveness requires long-term monitoring of forest responses to disturbances and assessing changes in fuel loadings and structure. Researchers from Michigan State University and the USFS Fire Behavior Assessment Team remeasured a ponderosa pine forest 13 years after a combination of treatments were implemented: no treatment/control (C), mastication (M), mastication + burn (MB), and mastication + pull back of surface fuels + burn (MPB).

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Adaptive Strategies for Managing Bishop pine with Fire

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Adaptive Strategies for Managing Bishop pine with Fire

This study investigates Bishop pine's unique fire ecology, seed bank dynamics, and the impacts pine pitch canker infection has on stands.

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Heading fires consume more fuels than backing fires

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Heading fires consume more fuels than backing fires

Researchers from Michigan State University and the USFS Fire Behavior Assessment Team used 15 years of immediate pre- and post-fire fuel and wildfire behavior data to identify the role of fire advancement mode and pre-fire environmental drivers (e.g., topography, fire weather, and fuel loadings) on fuel consumption and fire effects in California mixed-conifer forests.

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Fire and fuels management in coast redwood forests

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Fire and fuels management in coast redwood forests

This report compiles research on fuel conditions, fire history, and fire effects data from contemporary wildfires to provide context for the future management of old growth coast redwood stands and restoration of old growth attributes in second growth forests. The report also investigates fire hazards present in redwood forests and their fire management implications.

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California wildland fires burning mostly in non-forests: Research Brief

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California wildland fires burning mostly in non-forests: Research Brief

Wildfires in California burn across a broad diversity of land cover types with different implications for each unique ecosystem. This paper shows that most of California’s recent wildfires burn outside of forests and forest management is just one piece of a very large, very nuanced problem.

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Blister rust, beetles, and fire threaten white pines: Research Brief

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Blister rust, beetles, and fire threaten white pines: Research Brief

In recent decades white pine blister rust, mountain pine beetle, and fire have increased in extent and caused tree mortality across the western USA. This study used long-term monitoring plots to determine mortality of four white pine species in Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks.

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Stand Structure in the Sierra de San Pedro Mártir: Research Synthesis

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Stand Structure in the Sierra de San Pedro Mártir: Research Synthesis

The SSPM can help guide management decisions in mixed conifer/ yellow pine forests of the western US/ California that wish to return forests to historical (pre-European) conditions or prepare them for a changing climate and an uncertain future.

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Fire severity impacts on plant species richness: Research Brief

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Fire severity impacts on plant species richness: Research Brief

Plants often have characteristics that make them well suited to the common type, frequency, and/or severity of disturbance in ecosystems where they occur. Plant species richness was found to be affected by historical fire regime and severity in coniferous forests of the Western US.

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Restoration actions should consider the composition of mixed conifer forest to increase resilience in fire-excluded stands: Research Brief

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Restoration actions should consider the composition of mixed conifer forest to increase resilience in fire-excluded stands: Research Brief

In the Sierra Nevada most historical stand structure studies have focused on drier pine-dominated forests. This paper helps to fill a gap by contributing information on historical structure in more mesic forests with more moderate amounts of moisture.

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