A new approach to evaluate forest structure restoration needs across Oregon and Washington, USA

Haugo, Ryan D.; Zanger, Chris; DeMeo, Tom; Ringo, Chris; Shlisky, Ayn; Blankenship, Kori; Simpson, Mike; Mellen‐McLean, Kim; Kertis, Jane; Stern, Mark A.

doi:10.1016/j.foreco.2014.09.014

Cited by 74 publications

(70 citation statements)

References 47 publications

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“…not found at the larger geographic scale). Coniferous forests in this region are dynamic, as fire suppression, timber harvest, insect outbreaks, and natural succession continuously change forest structure and composition across the landscape (e.g., Hessburg et al 2000, Haugo et al 2015. All 3 species depend on coniferous forest habitats, so determining local management alternatives or forest restoration techniques that benefit this habitat type may be important.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The first 50 years of the North American Breeding Bird Survey

et al. 2017

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The first 50 years of the North American Breeding Bird Survey

et al. 2017

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“…Throughout western North America, effects of climate change on MSForests are compounded by prior timber harvests and fire exclusion, which, via regeneration and release of shade-tolerant conifers, significantly increased tree density and abundance of young relative to older tree cohorts (Fettig et al, 2007;Halofsky et al, 2011;Hessburg and Agee, 2003;Hessburg et al, 2005;Loudermilk et al, 2013Loudermilk et al, , 2014Perry et al, 2011;Raffa et al, 2008). This shift in age structure manifests at patch to regional landscape scales (Larson and Churchill, 2012;Perry et al, 2004Perry et al, , 2011Taylor, 2004;Brown and Wu, 2005;Hessburg et al, 2000aHessburg et al, , 2005Haugo et al, 2010Haugo et al, , 2015Naficy et al, 2010). For example, in eastern Oregon and Washington, a cover type transition from drought and fire-tolerant to intolerant species is accompanying the shift in age structure , Hessburg et al, 1999a, 1999b, 2000aMerschel et al, 2014;Perry et al, 2004;Stine et al, 2014).…”

Section: Recent Changes In Msforestsmentioning

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

176

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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“…In this study, a clear trade-off existed between increased fire activity to restore fire resilient forests and the conservation of NSO habitat. For instance, U.S. Forest Service managers are increasingly focused on managing for historical disturbance regimes and ranges of variability (Haugo et al 2015). Although areas of dense multilayered forests were preserved under historical fire regimes because of their topographic positions and climate (Camp et al 1997), accelerated wildfire scenarios we simulated burned through these areas.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…However, mechanical fuel treatment programs are expensive and are constrained by administrative, financial, and operational factors (North et al 2015). The scale of existing programs and associated investments would need to be increased by several orders of magnitude to treat the backlog of forests that have undergone densification and fuel buildup due to fire exclusion practices (Haugo et al 2015).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of accelerated wildfire on future fire regimes and implications for the United States federal fire policy

Ager¹,

Barros²,

Preisler³

et al. 2017

E&S

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. 2017. Effects of accelerated wildfire on future fire regimes and implications for the United States federal fire policy. Ecology and Society 22 (4) ABSTRACT. Wildland fire suppression practices in the western United States are being widely scrutinized by policymakers and scientists as costs escalate and large fires increasingly affect social and ecological values. One potential solution is to change current fire suppression tactics to intentionally increase the area burned under conditions when risks are acceptable to managers and fires can be used to achieve long-term restoration goals in fire adapted forests. We conducted experiments with the Envision landscape model to simulate increased levels of wildfire over a 50-year period on a 1.2 million ha landscape in the eastern Cascades of Oregon, USA. We hypothesized that at some level of burned area fuels would limit the growth of new fires, and fire effects on the composition and structure of forests would eventually reduce future fire intensity and severity. We found that doubling current rates of wildfire resulted in detectable feedbacks in area burned and fire intensity. Area burned in a given simulation year was reduced about 18% per unit area burned in the prior five years averaged across all scenarios. The reduction in area burned was accompanied by substantially lower fire severity, and vegetation shifted to open forest and grass-shrub conditions at the expense of old growth habitat. Negative fire feedbacks were slightly moderated by longer-term positive feedbacks, in which the effect of prior area burned diminished during the simulation. We discuss trade-offs between managing fuels with wildfire versus prescribed fire and mechanical fuel treatments from a social and policy standpoint. The study provides a useful modeling framework to consider the potential value of fire feedbacks as part of overall land management strategies to build fire resilient landscapes and reduce wildfire risk to communities in the western U.S. The results are also relevant to prior climate-wildfire studies that did not consider fire feedbacks in projections of future wildfire activity.

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A new approach to evaluate forest structure restoration needs across Oregon and Washington, USA

Cited by 74 publications

References 47 publications

The first 50 years of the North American Breeding Bird Survey

The first 50 years of the North American Breeding Bird Survey

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

Effects of accelerated wildfire on future fire regimes and implications for the United States federal fire policy

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