Category: Fire

Rabbit Rules for Prescribed Burns

by Zoe Hoyle, SRS Science Communications  • 
Forest Service scientists with the Southern Research Station (SRS) Center for Forest Disturbance Science  (CFDS) recently tested Rabbit Rules, a simplified model they developed that can be used to quickly calculate fire and smoke behavior from prescribed burns. The impacts of smoke on air quality are particularly important in the South, where managers use prescribed…  More 

More Fuel for Fire?

by Susan Andrew  • 
Fire has been a fact of life for millennia in the South, shaping the range and ecology of pine, certain oak, and palm forests. But along with shrinking polar ice and rising sea levels, there’s general agreement among climate scientists that climate change will probably increase both the intensity and frequency of fire in the southern…  More 

Prescribed Fire in the Piney Woods

by Zoe Hoyle, SRS Science Communications  • 
Effects on amphibians and reptiles Forest managers across North America use prescribed burning for many reasons—restoring ecosystem functions, improving wildlife habitat, reducing wildlife hazard, to name a few. Prescribed fire can have both beneficial and negative effects on specific plants and animals. Managers are increasingly sensitive to possible effects of fire on amphibians and reptiles…  More 

Acorns and Prescribed Fire

by Sarah Farmer, SRS Science Delivery Group  • 
Southern Research Station (SRS) scientists have found that litter and soil can provide the insulation needed to protect acorns when prescribed fire is used to help restore oak ecosystems. “Acorns inside the leaf litter or in the soil are for the most part protected from fire,” says Katie Greenberg, SRS researcher and lead author of…  More 

Southern Pine Beetle Impacts on Forests

by Zoe Hoyle, SRS Science Communications  • 
Shortleaf pine-hardwood ecosystem restoration following insect outbreak Research by Southern Research Station (SRS) scientists shows that the impacts of recent outbreaks of southern pine beetle further degraded shortleaf pine-hardwood forest ecosystems in the southern Appalachian region. The authors suggest that cutting and burning these sites reduces heavy fuel loads, improves soil nutrient status, and opens…  More 

Refining Fire Behavior Modeling

by Zoe Hoyle, SRS Science Communications  • 
Assessing Wildland Fuels and Hazard Mitigation Treatments in the Southeast Research by Southern Research Station biometrician Bernie Parresol takes center stage in a special issue of the journal Forest Ecology and Management due out in June in print. Parresol is lead author of two of the five articles—and co-author of two more—in an issue that focuses on…  More 

Taking America’s Rarest Snake Back to the Woods

by Zoe Hoyle, SRS Science Communications  • 
Louisiana pine snakes released on Kisatchie National Forest On May 1, USDA Forest Service, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, Louisiana Department of Wildlife and Fisheries, the Memphis Zoo, and other partners released seven young Louisiana pine snakes on a restored longleaf pine stand in the Kisatchie National Forest in Louisiana. The release is the fourth…  More 

Fire on the Base

by Zoe Hoyle, SRS Science Communications  • 
  DOD and Joint Fire Science Fund SRS Research at Eglin Air Force Base The U.S. Department of Defense (DOD) recently awarded the Southern Research Station (SRS) Center for Forest Disturbance Science (CFDS) $2 million for a 5-year project with researchers from the Joseph W. Jones Ecological Research Center, Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station,…  More 

Tom Waldrop Receives Distinguished Science Award

by Zoe Hoyle, SRS Science Communications  • 
USDA Forest Service Deputy Chief for Research & Development Jim Reaves recently announced Southern Research Station (SRS) Research Forester Tom Waldrop as the recipient of the Deputy Chief’s Distinguished Science Award for 2011. Waldrop will receive the award this April during the Forest Service Executive Research Team meeting at the Rocky Mountain Research Station in Fort…  More 

An Evening Burn to Restore Mountain Forests

by Zoe Hoyle, SRS Science Communications  • 
The North Carolina Wildlife Resources Commission (NCWRC) and the Southern Research Station(SRS) have been cooperating for over 10 years to study prescribed burning in the Southern Appalachian Mountains on state-owned Green River Game Land in Polk County, NC.  The afternoon and evening of January 31, crews burned study plots on the Green River Game Land…  More