Policy & Managed Fire

IN A NUTSHELLReview of the history, policies, and challenges behind “managed wildfire”, the fire management strategy of leveraging natural ignitions for resource objectives and community benefit. Description: The topic of “managed wildfire” is mired in complexity, starting with what to call it. This fire management approach has been known as “prescribed natural fire,” “wildland fire use,” …

Fire Science and Management in an Uncertain Future

Tuesday 1 December 2020, 9:00 am to 12:45 pm PST; Virtual format (Zoom) Key Purpose Identify fire science and management needs and discuss tools and approaches to natural resource assessments and adaptation strategies for fire dynamics in future climates in Southwest (DOI Regions 8 & 10 [CA, NV, AZ]) bioregions. Take-Aways This four-hour, virtual Summit …

September 25, 2013: How will climate change and treatments affect future forests? Testing alternatives with the Climate-FVS model

Presenter: Pete Fulè, Professor, Northern Arizona University Under current conditions, large, severe wildfires are a fact of life in southwestern ponderosa pine forests. What will burned systems look like over the coming decades under warming climate? Do management treatments make a lasting difference or will climate override their effects? We applied the relatively new feature …

Southwest Tribal Fire and Climate Resilience – 2023 Virtual Workshop

This is part of an ongoing effort to respect tribal sovereignty and treaty rights by supporting tribal use of fire as part of cultural and ecological resilience, and seeks to increase capacities, ameliorate challenges, and share examples that can guide tribes across the Southwest. In 2023, we gathered virtually to explore issues facing tribes relating …

Extreme Fire

Hot and Dry Podcast Series EPISODE SUMMARY Cally and Collin talk with experts on extreme fire behavior. We learn it is more complex than it seems and the exact definition is hard to pin down. EPISODE NOTES Discussion on extreme fire. How can we prepare for it? How might it change in the future? How …

April 12, 2017: Efficacy of resource objective wildfires for restoring ponderosa pine ecosystems in N. Arizona

Efficacy of resource objective wildfires for restoring ponderosa pine ecosystems in northern Arizona Date: April 12, 2017 11am AZ/12pm MDT Presenter: David Huffman, Ecological Restoration Institute, Northern Arizona University Historical interruption of frequent surface fire regimes and decades of fire exclusion have resulted in degraded ecological conditions in ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa) forests of the American …

Sonoran desert view showing saguaro cactus surrounded by tall buffelgrass

Monitoring and Removal of Invasive Grasses for Restoration of Dry Desert Systems

IN A NUTSHELLA panel of researchers and managers discusses the impact of non-native invasive grasses on dry desert systems and various methods to remove, monitor, or slow their spread. The fire regime of dry desert systems, such as the Sonoran, historically consisted of infrequent, low intensity, size-limited fires. Native grasses and other vegetation, which grow …

Can landscape fuel treatments enhance both protection and resource management objectives?

Date: September 14, 2021 11am AZ/12pm MDTPresenter: Kevin Vogler, Pyrologix LLC, Missoula Montana Land management agencies in the U.S. Departments of Interior and Agriculture can potentially accomplish ecological resource management objectives using unplanned wildfires, but only if such fires do not otherwise threaten to damage valuable resources and assets. Landscape-scale fuel treatments have been proposed …

2020 SW Wildfire Season Overview

by M. Lynch and A. Evans. In 2020, wildfire burned 1,068,373 acres in the Southwest (Arizona and New Mexico), which is greater than the average number of acres burned annually in these two states over the previous ten-year period.” Arizona had significantly more wildfire (929,522 acres) than its ten-year average (305,623 acres), while New Mexico …

Resources for predicting and mitigating smoke impacts of wildland fires

Resources for predicting and mitigating smoke impacts of wildland fires PDF. Working Paper 40, August 2018, by Caleb Stotts, Pete Lahm, and Claudia Standish Factsheet also available here. Fact Sheet, August 2018, by Caleb Stotts, Pete Lahm, and Claudia Standish Fire managers use prescribed fire and some wildfires to meet resource management objectives, like restoring and maintaining …