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Project ID: 03-1-4-11

Year: 2003

Date Started: 07/16/2003

Date Completed: 10/04/2007

Title: The Effects of Grass Seeding and Salvage Logging on Fuel Loads, Potential Fire Behavior, and the Biological Diversity of Severely Burned Low Elevation Southern Oregon Forests

Project Proposal Abstract: This proposal addresses 2003-1 Task 4, particularly the evaluation of post-fire stabilization and rehabilitation treatments. Considerable controversy exists concerning post-fire activities including salvage logging and grass seeding. Although salvage logging was a common post-fire practice until recently, we could find no replicated studies that have examined how salvage logging and seeding affects fuel loads and fire behavior. The central objectives of this study are to determine the effects of salvage and seeding on fuels, plant succession, and wildlife diversity. Salvage logging allows for the economic recovery of fire-killed trees while decreasing total fuel loads in burned forests. Burned areas are seeded to decrease erosion, decrease exotic species invasions, and create forage for wildlife and livestock. Many species of plants and animals depend on fires to create conditions needed for regeneration, reproduction, and food acquisition. Post-fire activities such as grass seeding may effectively close the small window of opportunity available for native fire-dependent plants to regenerate, possibly altering the successional dynamics of forests over long periods of time. Furthermore, many animal species of special concern require habitats with snags and downed woody debris created during fires. Post-fire salvage logging may have detrimental effects on such species, which need to be enumerated so that land managers can make decisions about the extent to which such methods should be employed. In this study we propose to establish two experiments: (1) determine the short-term effects of salvage logging (and no salvage) on fuels, forest structure, and plant and animal composition through establishment of permanent replicated plots in the 2002 Biscuit and Timbered Rock fires to be salvaged in late 2003 or early 2004; and (2) through a chronosequence approach of sampling burns in 1987, 1992, 1995, 2001, and 2002 examine the longer term forest ecosystem responses to salvage logging and seeding. Our work will provide knowledge about both the short- and long-term effects of post-fire activities on plant and animal diversity and on how fuel loads may influence the risk of future fires.

Principal Investigator: J. Boone Kauffman

Agency/Organization: Oregon State University

Branch or Dept: Department of Fisheries & Wildlife

Other Project Collaborators

Type	Name	Agency/Organization	Branch or Dept
Co-Principal Investigator	Beverly Law	Oregon State University	Forestry
Co-Principal Investigator	Douglas W. Robinson	Oregon State University	Department of Fisheries & Wildlife
Federal Cooperator	Tom Sensenig	BLM-Bureau of Land Management	Medford District Office

Project Locations

Consortium

California

Northwest

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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.")

There are no deliverables available for this project.

Supporting Documents

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Brief

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