Tag: Fuel reduction

Focus on Joseph O’Brien

by Virginia McDaniel, Science Writer  • 
This is a new type of article focusing on the people behind the science. These articles will profile SRS employees – from different job series and locations – whose work fulfills and supports the Station’s mission. “I am intrigued by the connection between fire and its role in maintaining biodiversity,” says Joseph O’Brien, a research…  More 

Taking students to the fireline

by Sarah Farmer, SRS Science Communications  • 
Over 50 students at Clemson University have participated in the Fire Tigers Program. The program starts with a week of classes. Students who like the classes can keep going – they can take saw and pump classes and help conduct prescribed fires on nearby national forests. Some students work on wildfires and become certified wildland…  More 

Mechanical Fuel Reduction Costs

by Jennifer Moore Myers, SRS Science Communications  • 
Mitigating wildfire risk is a land management priority across the U.S. Reducing fuel loads through mechanical treatments can control understory and midstory vegetation and prevent fuel ladders that can spread fire from ground vegetation up into the canopy crown. A book chapter by USDA Forest Service scientists Dana Mitchell and Mathew Smidt summarizes costs, benefits,…  More 

Photo Guide to Fuel Loads in the Southern Appalachians

by Sarah Farmer, SRS Science Communications  • 
A new photo guide shows fuel loads in the Southern Appalachian mountains. A team of four experts wrote the guide: Adam Coates, a professor at Virginia Tech; Tom Waldrop, a USDA Forest Service research forester who is now retired; Todd Hutchinson, a research ecologist at the Northern Research Station; and Helen Mohr, an SRS forester…  More 

Insights from the 2016 Southern Appalachian Wildfires

by Casey Conrad, SRS Science Communications Intern  • 
Depending on their timing and location, fires can destroy or restore, with little gray area in between. In the early fall of 2016, one specific fire event in Southern Appalachia was unlike any other in recent decades, leaving behind unprecedented devastation once the fire had ceased. From this disastrous fire season comes a recent report…  More 

Predicting Fire Behavior with New 3D Fuel Models

by Diane Banegas, USDA Forest Service, Knowledge Management and Communications  • 
Land managers have a new tool in their firefighting arsenals that models forest fuels in three dimensions. These 3D fuel models developed by the USDA Forest Service have the potential to make firefighting and the management of controlled burns safer and less costly while helping to protect valuable natural resources. The 3D fuels modeling technique…  More 

Drier Weather, Drier Fuels

by Sarah Farmer, SRS Science Communications  • 
Dry weather – and huge wildfires – are common. “Climate change would modify fuel moisture and wildland fires dramatically across the United States,” says Yongqiang Liu. Liu is a U.S. Forest Service research meteorologist who recently investigated climate impacts on fuel moisture. His study was published in the journal Ecohydrology. Weather quickly influences fuel moisture…  More 

Managing Southern Appalachian Hardwood Forests with Fire

by Zoё Hoyle, SRS Science Communications  • 
Findings from a study led by a U.S. Forest Service scientist suggest that more frequent use of prescribed fire will be needed to reach common management objectives for the hardwood forests in the southern Appalachian region. The findings by Forest Service emeritus scientist Tom Waldrop and collaborators were published in a recent issue of the…  More