Principal findings of the National Fire and Fire Surrogate (FFS) study are presented in an annotated bibliography and summarized in tabular form by site, discipline (ecosystem component), treatment type, and major theme. Composed of 12 sites, the FFS is a comprehensive multidisciplinary experiment designed to evaluate the costs and ecological consequences of alternative fuel reduction treatments in seasonally dry forests of the United States. The FFS has a common experimental design across the 12-site network, with each site a fully replicated experiment that compares four treatments: prescribed fire, mechanical treatments, mechanical + prescribed fi re, and an un-manipulated control.We measured treatment cost and variables within several components of the ecosystem, including vegetation, the fuel bed, soils, bark beetles, tree diseases, and wildlife in the same 10-ha experimental units. This design allowed us to assemble a fairly comprehensive picture of ecosystem response to treatment at the site scale, and to compare treatment response across a wide variety of conditions.
McIver J, Erickson K, Youngblood A. Principal short-term findings of the National Fire and Fire Surrogate study. USDA Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station; 2012 p. 210.