Category: Fire

Managing Southern Forests under Climate Change

by Zoe Hoyle, SRS Science Communications  • 
U.S. Forest Service scientists recently published a new comprehensive guide to help natural resource managers in the South develop options for managing southern forest ecosystems in the face of climate change.  Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation Management Options: A Guide for Natural Resource Managers in Southern Forest Ecosystems culminates a multi-year initiative by Forest Service Southern…  More 

Korean Forests Gain Ground with U.S. Forest Service Support

by Stephanie Worley Firley, EFETAC  • 
Korean forest scientists know all too well how degraded forests affect ecosystems and people. During the 20th century, unsustainable harvesting and conversion of forests to cropland caused “serious social and environmental problems like lack of fuel, severe flooding, and droughts,” according to the Korea Forest Service. In the 1970s, the country began a widespread forest…  More 

Reflections on the Southern Forest Futures Project

by David Wear and John Greis, Editors, Southern Forest Futures Project Technical Report  • 
In 2008, we started the Southern Forest Futures Project with 15 public workshops held in each of the 13 States of our region. In Baton Rouge, Asheville, Stillwater, Charleston, and all the other locations, we discussed and compiled the concerns of more than 700 resource professionals and other interested  citizens regarding the great and vast…  More 

ForWarn Researchers Get EVEREST-Sized Look at Woodland Disturbances

by Stephanie Worley Firley, EFETAC, & Dawn Levy, ORNL  • 
An exploratory visualization facility at Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL) has provided researchers with the Forest Service Eastern Forest Environmental Threat Assessment Center and their partners a unique view of maps used for detecting and tracking unexpected forest change and disturbances. The researchers are part of a large team that developed the first near-real-time forest threat…  More 

How Forest Fires Start: Modeling Wildfire Ignitions

by Sarah Farmer, SRS Science Delivery Group  • 
Most wildfires are started – whether accidentally or intentionally – by people. Understanding where wildfires are most likely to occur and how they can be predicted has been a major focus for U.S. Forest Service Southern Research Station (SRS) researchers Jeffrey Prestemon and his colleagues and experts from state, other federal, and tribal land management…  More 

Agencies Join Forces to Host Red-cockaded Woodpecker Short Course

by Cory Adams  • 
This spring, U.S. Forest Service Southern Research Station wildlife biologist Cory Adams joined forces with Cliff Shackelford  from Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, and Robert Allen from the US Fish and Wildlife Service to teach 16 individuals from 5 consulting firms about the red-cockaded woodpecker, a federally listed endangered species found in fire-maintained mature pine…  More 

Long-Term Research on Fire Ecology in the Southern Appalachians

by Zoe Hoyle, SRS Science Communications  • 
Scientists with the U.S. Forest Service Southern Research Station (SRS) Upland Hardwoods Ecology and Management unit recently received a grant from the Joint Fire Sciences Program to continue a study on the long-term effects on wildlife of using prescribed fire and mechanical fuel reduction treatments in upland hardwood forests. The study is on the southern Appalachian…  More 

Wildland Fire in the Appalachians Conference

by Zoe Hoyle, SRS Science Communications  • 
The Consortium of Appalachian Fire Managers and Scientists and the Association for Fire Ecology are hosting a conference October 8 -10, 2013, at the Hotel Roanoke and Conference Center in downtown Roanoke, Virginia. Wildland Fire in the Appalachians: Discussions Among Managers and Scientists is designed for anyone with an interest in wildland fire in the…  More 

Vose Named to Jones Center Science Advisory Committee

by Zoe Hoyle, SRS Science Communications  • 
  Jim Vose, project leader of the U.S. Forest Service Southern Research Station Center for Integrated Forest Science, has been selected to serve on the Science Advisory Committee for the Joseph W. Jones Ecological Research Center at Ichauway in southwestern Georgia. Originally established in the 1920s as a quail hunting reserve, Ichauway now serves as…  More 

The Center for Integrated Forest Science

by Zoe Hoyle, SRS Science Communications  • 
A Pioneering Research Model Over the past 40 years, forest science has evolved from more traditional “forestry” science with a near exclusive focus on enhancing forest productivity to a science that must address broader and more complex topics such as sustaining ecosystem services in the face of land use change, climate variability, and altered disturbance…  More