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Project ID: 03-3-3-46

Year: 2003

Date Started: 07/01/2003

Date Completed: 12/20/2006

Title: Stereo Photo Series for Quantifying Natural Fuels in the Prairie Forest and Northwestern Great Plains

Project Proposal Abstract: Knowing the amount of biomass and other fuel characteristics across a landscape is becoming increasingly important to fire managers as new fuel and fire management decision support systems come on line. Throughout the country, land managers are using the photo series as a simple, easy method for quantifying existing fuel characteristics for land management practices such as fuels treatment. Approximately 30 photo series publications have been produced during the past 30 years. However, none of those produced to date have covered any of the Great Plains vegetation types, and the forest, shrub and grassland vegetation is quite different from that found in areas previously covered by photo series. The Bureau of Land Management is actively developing fuels management activities in this area to reduce the risk of catastrophic fire and to reintroduce fire for improved ecosystem health and sustainability. These activities are hampered by the idiosyncratic nature of the vegetation and the lack of any scientific guide to natural fuels. The objective of this research proposal is to compile a sequence of single and stereo photographs with accompanying vegetation and fuels characterization data that will provide a quick and easy means for quantifying and describing existing fuel properties for the vegetation types of the northwestern Great Plains, including forest, shrub and grasslands. The photo series is expected to be applicable to an area of at least 58,000 mi2 in central and eastern Montana and will probably extend into North Dakota. The photo series will cover a range of composition and structure from dense ponderosa pine-Douglas-fir- juniper to rhizomatous grassland with and without sagebrush to riparian shrubland. Approximately 30 sites will be selected and photographed during this study and printed in one volume. The photo series project will use methods similarly to those employed in previous photo series, although new data will also be collected (e.g. crown bulk density) using protocols formulated from previous Joint Fire Science Projects. Twin Hasselblad, medium format cameras will be used to photograph the sites and appropriate fuels inventory methods determined from the literature will be used to quantify the fuels. This photo series will fill a gap in scientific knowledge that is significant to fire management implementation in the northwestern Great Plains (AFP-2003-3, task #3).

Principal Investigator: Roger D. Ottmar

Agency/Organization: Forest Service

Branch or Dept: PNW-Seattle-Managing Natural Disturbances

Other Project Collaborators

Type	Name	Agency/Organization	Branch or Dept
Co-Principal Investigator	Gary Kirpach	BLM-Bureau of Land Management	Lewistown Field Office
Co-Principal Investigator	Mitch Maycox	BLM-Bureau of Land Management	Lewistown Field Office
Federal Cooperator	Roger D. Ottmar	Forest Service	PNW-Seattle-Managing Natural Disturbances

Project Locations

Consortium

Great Plains

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
	5476	NonRefereed Publication	Stereo Photo Series for Quantifying Natural Fuels Volume X: Sagebrush with Grass and Ponderosa Pine-Juniper Types in Central Montana

Supporting Documents

There are no supporting documents available for this project.

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