Assessing silvopasture management as a strategy to reduce fuel loads and mitigate wildfire risk

Abstract

Managing private forests for wildfire resilience is challenging due to conflicting social, economic, and ecological decisions that may result in an increase of surface fuel loads leading to greater fire risk. Due to fire suppression and a changing climate, land managers in fire-prone regions face an increasing threat of high severity fires. Thus, land managers need fuel treatment options that match their forest types and management objectives. One potential option for producers that graze livestock is silvopasture management, where livestock, forages, and overstory vegetation are carefully managed for co-benefits on the same unit of land. This study compared forest composition and structure, fuel types, and vegetative biomass between silvopasture and non-grazed managed forests in Washington, U.S. We show that silvopasture management results in reductions in grass biomass, litter, and duff depth when compared to non-grazed managed forest. These findings point to the integrated nature of silvopasture, where management of overstory composition and structure, understory vegetation, and grazing can reduce fuel loads and potential wildfire risk.

Predicting Fine Dead Fuel Load of Forest Floors Based on Image Euler Numbers

“…Fine dead surface fuels are generally considered to be the most important fuel class in wildland fires. They are surface fuels with a diameter of less than 6 mm that are flammable, can spread fast, have a high combustion efficiency, and possess a large surface-area-tovolume ratio [1,2]. Aside from serving as the material basis for surface fires, they also have a marked impact on the formation of canopy fires [3,4].…”