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Project ID: 01-1-1-06

Year: 2002

Date Started: 05/16/2002

Date Completed: 11/05/2007

Title: Historical Wildland Fire Use: Lessons to Be Learned From Twenty-Five Years of Wilderness Fire Management

Project Proposal Abstract: We propose three research tasks that take advantage of a 25-year legacy of wildland fire use in the Gila/Aldo Leopold Wilderness Complex (GALWC) in New Mexico using landscape-scale experimentation and simulation modeling. Individually, these tasks will address the following main research questions: 1) How do landscape composition, structure, and function vary under different fire management strategies? 2) Are there thresholds in pre-fire stand structure in ponderosa pine/Douglas-fir forests that lead to undesired levels of canopy mortality in wildland fire use operations? and 3)1-low sensitive are fire regime metrics based on fire scar collections to different sampling strategies? Together, the three proposed research tasks will quantir the effects of specific types of fires on landscape structure, composition, and function based on extehsive fire history databases, broad-scale ecological simulation modeling, and 25 years of well-documented wildiand fire use in the GALWC. The first Proposed Research Task (to be completed at the USDA Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station, Fire Sciences Laboratory) involves simulation of change in landscape composition and structure, and ecosystem processes under different fire management alternatives and climate scenarios using the mechanistic disturbance-ecosystem process model Fire-BGC. Simulation results will be compared to assess the effects of different wildfire use treatments on wildlife, water, and nutrient resource at landscape scales. The second Proposed Research Task (to be completed at the University of Idaho) involves evaluating thresholds in pretreatment stand structure that lead to undesired levels of mortality in wildland fire use operations. By substituting space for time we will conduct a statistically controlled, landscape-scale experiment based on 25 years of wildland fire use in the GALWC. The third Proposed Research `Task (to be completed at the University of Arizona) involves quantitative evaluation of different sources of fire history information for assessing fire regimes. Results from this task will be useful in identifying the confidence and caution that should be applied to fire history data and interpretations of fire regimes based on different fire history methodologies. Syntheses of the three research tasks will provide information and empirically derived guidelines useful for fire managers and fire scientists to evaluate fire management plans, wildiand fire use, and broad scale fuel treatments throughout the Interior West.

Principal Investigator: Matthew G. Rollins

Agency/Organization: USGS-Geological Survey

Branch or Dept: Fire Science National Center

Other Project Collaborators

Type	Name	Agency/Organization	Branch or Dept
Co-Principal Investigator	Penny M. Morgan	University of Idaho	Department of Forest Resources
Co-Principal Investigator	Scott L. Stephens	University of California-Berkeley	Department of Environmental Sciences-Policy & Management
Co-Principal Investigator	Jan W. Van Wagtendonk	USGS-Geological Survey	WERC-Yosemite Field Station
Collaborator/Contributor	Paul Boucher	Forest Service	Gila National Forest
Collaborator/Contributor	Anthony C Caprio	NPS-National Park Service	Sequoia-Kings Canyon National Parks
Collaborator/Contributor	John J. Keane	Forest Service	PSW-Sierra Nevada Research Center
Collaborator/Contributor	Kathy Schon	NPS-National Park Service	NIFC-National Interagency Fire Center
Collaborator/Contributor	Nathan Stephenson	USGS-Geological Survey	WERC-Sequoia & Kings Canyon Field Station
Federal Cooperator	Matthew G. Rollins	USGS-Geological Survey	Fire Science National Center

Project Locations

Consortium

California

Northern Rockies

Northwest

Southwest

There are no project locations identified for this project.

Project Deliverables

Final Report ("Results presented in JFSP Final Reports may not have been peer-reviewed and should be interpreted as tentative until published in a peer-reviewed source.")

	ID	Type	Title
	6742	Refereed Publication	Spatial Patterns of Large Natural Fires in Sierra Nevada Wilderness Areas
	6758	Refereed Publication	Landscape Scale Effects of Wildland Fire Use Programs in Sierra Nevada Wilderness Areas
	6746	Refereed Publication	Ponderosa Pine Snag Densities Following Multiple Fires in the Gila Wilderness, New Mexico
	6744	Refereed Publication	Effects of Multiple Wildfires on Ponderosa Pine Stand Structure in Two Southwestern Wilderness Areas
	6743	Refereed Publication	Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment: Managing Natural Fires in Sierra Nevada Wilderness Areas
	6745	Refereed Publication	Evaluation of Novel Thermally Enhanced Spectral Indices for Mapping Fire Perimeters and Comparisons with Fire Atlas Data
	6747	MS Thesis	Evaluation of Novel Thermally Enhanced Spectral Indices for Mapping Fire Perimeters and Comparisons with Fire Atlas Data (Z. Holden)
	6748	MS Thesis	Thirty Years of Wildland Fire Use: Effects of Multiple Fires on Stand Structure in Two Southwestern Wilderness Areas (Z. Holden)

Supporting Documents

There are no supporting documents available for this project.

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