Mormon Fire Staff Ride- Restoring Wildfire to the Landscape

The purpose of the Mormon Fire Staff Ride is to encourage the use of natural ignition fires as a forest management tool by creating a peer-learning space for line officers to explore implementation decisions and challenges. By using the story map, we hope to strengthen line officers’ preparedness and confidence around the use of natural ignitions and …

February 14, 2018: Fire severity and regeneration strategy influence shrub patch size and structure

Date: February 14, 2018 Presenter: Jesse Minor, Adjunct Instructor, University of Arizona Shrub species demonstrate flexible responses to wildfire disturbance severity that are reflected in shrub patch dynamics at small and intermediate scales. Prior research has examined the dynamics and persistence of large shrub patches on the landscape; our work focuses on individuals or groups of individual …

November 1, 2017: Interagency coordination to meet multiple objectives: An effective approach to wildfire

Date: November 1, 2017 11am AZ/12pm MDT Presenters: Shaula Hedwall, U.S. Fish & Wildlife Service and Wesley Hall, Coconino National Forest While the number of acres burned annually by uncharacteristic wildfire continues to grow, it is becoming exceedingly important for agencies to identify opportunities to use wildfire to meet multiple land management and resource objectives.  When conditions …

Horseshoe 2 Fire: 6 years Post-Fire

We hosted a two-day field trip to visit various locations within the perimeter of the 2011 Horseshoe 2 Fire (including Chiricahua National Monument and Coronado National Forest). Topics discussed include: wildlife impacts, rangeland impacts, watershed and hydrology effects, and historic fire regime and re-burn issues. Read the Horseshoe 2 Factsheet here. Click the StoryMap below …

2017 TWS Conference Symposium- Wildfire and spotted owls: It’s a burning issue (co-host)

Symposium September 25th: “Wildfire and spotted owls: It’s a burning issue” Study results suggest that wildfires in the western U.S. have increased in size and severity over the past several decades. This increase has raised concern over the effects of fire, particularly high-severity fire, on threatened and endangered species, including the spotted owl (Strix occidentalis). These …

Bosque del Apache NWR-Fire and Wildlife Management

The 57,000 acre Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge is a unique landscape with uplands and water features, including a stretch of the Rio Grande River. It provides an important wintering ground for cranes and geese. Refuge staff depend upon and utilize various tools to manage the Bosque del Apache National Wildlife Refuge for the …

December 2, 2016: Altar Valley

Altar Valley Field Trip In November and December 2016, we co-hosted a conference in Tucson, Arizona with the Association for Fire Ecology (Beyond hazardous fuels: Managing fire for social, economic, and ecological benefits). During the conference, we arranged three separate field trips. The link below provides information from each stop on the Altar Valley Field …

June 14, 2017: Recovery & adaptation after wildfire across the United States, 2009-2011

Date: June 14, 2017 11am AZ/12pm MDT Presenter: Miranda H. Mockrin, USFS Northern Research Station Becoming a fire-adapted community that can live with wildfire is envisioned as a continuous, iterative process of adaptation. In eight case study sites across the United States we examined how destructive wildfire affected altered progress towards becoming fire-adapted, focusing on the …

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 …

March 1, 2017: Fuels treatments and ecological values in piñon-juniper woodlands: Vegetation, birds, and modeled fire behavior

Date: March 1, 2017, 12pm MST Presenter: Jonathan Coop and Pat Magee Mastication and hand-thinning treatments are increasingly utilized by land managers as a means of reducing tree cover for fire hazard mitigation and other habitat objectives in piñon-juniper (P-J) woodlands. However, the effects of these treatments on ecological processes including fire, and on a wide …