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Project ID: 11-1-1-19

Year: 2011

Date Started: 07/01/2011

Ending Date:  12/31/2013

Title: Re-Measurement of Fuels and Stand Structure 13 Years After Logging of the Summit Fire, Malheur National Forest, Eastern Oregon

Project Proposal Abstract: This proposal describes plans to re-measure fuels and stand structure on plots of the Summit postfire logging study in the summer of 2011, 15 years after the 1996 Summit Fire burned 40,000 acres of seasonally dry mixed conifer forest on the Malheur National Forest in eastern Oregon. The southern third of the Summit Fire area is dominated by ponderosa pine forests, and here the 1996 wildfire burned with unusual severity, killing more than 80% of the trees, even in stands that had been intensively managed over the previous 40 years (USDA 1997). In the summer of 1998, two years after the fire, the Malheur National Forest conducted a timber sale, in which several thousand acres of forest was logged, including four replicated blocks of stands in which we measured the effects of logging on erosion and sediment transport (McIver 2004), soil disturbance (McIver and McNeil 2006), and fuels and stand structure (McIver and Ottmar 2007). Recent observations of the logged stands at Summit indicate that soil disturbance effects have become blurred by vegetation re-growth, and that the risk of sediment transport out of stands has largely disappeared, indicating that the benefit of re-measuring these variables is minimal at this time. On the other hand, the fuel bed and stand structure have changed markedly since postfire logging measurements were last taken (Figure 1), even though no vegetation or fuel reduction management has taken place in the ensuing years. One block of treated stands however (Wray Creek Block 4; Figure 2), experienced an additional wildfire in the summer of 2008, thus distinguishing it from the original replicated experiment, and turning it into a case study. We now propose to re-measure stand structure and the fuel bed, to capture information on fuel mass changes, snag fall rate, log decay rate, and regeneration success since the fire of 1996 (15 years hence), since the logging of 1998 (13 years hence), and for the Wray Creek block, since the second wildfire of 2008. This proposal responds to Joint Fire Science Program Task Statement 1 of FA-RFA-11-1, Re-measurement Opportunities, which seeks proposals to re-measure existing field studies to assess the effects of high-severity fire on vegetation succession, and/or to evaluate the effects of post-wildfire management.

Principal Investigator: James D. McIver

Agency/Organization: Oregon State University

Branch or Dept: Eastern Oregon Agricultural Research Center

Other Project Collaborators

Type	Name	Agency/Organization	Branch or Dept
Budget Contact	Rebecca A. Slick	Forest Service	PNW-Pacific Northwest Research Station
Co-Principal Investigator	Roger D. Ottmar	Forest Service	PNW-Seattle-Managing Natural Disturbances
Federal Cooperator	Roger D. Ottmar	Forest Service	PNW-Seattle-Managing Natural Disturbances
Grants and Agreements Contact	Christina T. Bui	Forest Service	PNW-Pacific Northwest Research Station

Project Locations

Consortium

Northwest

Level	State	Agency	Unit
STATE	OR	STATE	State Lands
NATIONAL		FS

Project Deliverables

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Supporting Documents

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