- Title:
-
Guide to Fuel Treatments in Dry Forests of the Western United States: Assessing forest structure and fire hazard
- Date:
- August 2007
- Organisations
- USFS
- Authors:
- Johnson, Morris C.; Peterson, David L.; Raymond, Crystal L.
-
Location:
-
USA,
United States of America
Overview
Guide to Fuel Treatments analyses a range of fuel treatments for
representative dry forest stands in the Western United States with
overstories dominated by ponderosa pine (
Pinus ponderosa), Douglas-fir (
Pseudotsuga menziesii), and pinyon pine (
Pinus edulis). Six silvicultural options (no thinning; thinning from below to 50 trees per acre [tpa], 100 tpa, 200 tpa, and 300 tpa; and prescribed fire) are considered in combination with three surface fuel treatments (no
treatment, pile and burn, and prescribed fire), resulting in a range of
alternative treatments for each representative stand. The Fire and Fuels Extension of the Forest Vegetation Simulator (FFE-FVS) was used to
calculate the immediate effects of treatments on surface fuels, fire
hazard, potential fire behavior, and forest structure. The FFEFVS was
also used to calculate a 50-year time series of treatment effects at
10-year increments. Usually, thinning to 50 to 100 tpa and an associated surface fuel treatment were shown to be necessary to alter potential
fire behavior from crown fire to surface fire under severe fire weather
conditions. This level of fuel treatment generally was predicted to
maintain potential fire behavior as surface fire for 30 to 40 years,
depending on how fast regeneration occurs in the understory, after which additional fuel treatment would be necessary to maintain surface fire
behavior. Fuel treatment scenarios presented here can be used by
resource managers to examine alternatives for National Environmental
Policy Act documents and other applications that require scientifically
based information to quantify the effects of modifying forest structure
and surface fuels.
