Skip to main content

Correlations between components of the water balance and burned area reveal insights for predicting forest fire area in the southwest United States

Year of Publication
2014
Publication Type

We related measurements of annual burned area in the southwest United States during 1984–2013 to records of climate variability. Within forests, annual burned area correlated at least as strongly with spring–summer vapour pressure deficit (VPD) as with 14 other drought-related metrics, including more complex metrics that explicitly represent fuel moisture.

An accuracy assessment of the MTBS burned area product for shrub-steppe fires in the northern Great Basin, United States

Year of Publication
2014
Publication Type

Although fire is a common disturbance in shrub–steppe, few studies have specifically tested burned area mapping accuracy in these semiarid to arid environments. We conducted a preliminary assessment of the accuracy of the Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity (MTBS) burned area product on four shrub–steppe fires that exhibited varying degrees of within-fire patch heterogeneity.

Climate and Weather Influences on Spatial Temporal Patterns of Mountain Pine Beetle Populations in Washington and Oregon

Year of Publication
2012
Publication Type

Widespread outbreaks of mountain pine beetle in North America have drawn the attention of scientists, forest managers, and the public. There is strong evidence that climate change has contributed to the extent and severity of recent outbreaks. Scientists are interested in quantifying relationships between bark beetle population dynamics and trends in climate.

Beyond reducing fire hazard: fuel treatment impacts on overstory tree survival

Year of Publication
2014
Publication Type

Fuel treatment implementation in dry forest types throughout the western UnitedStates is likely to increase in pace and scale in response to increasing incidence of large wildfires.While it is clear that properly implemented fuel treatments are effective at reducing hazardousfire potential, there are ancillary ecological effects that can impact forest resilience eitherpositively or negatively d

Assessing forest vegetation and fire simulation model performance after the Cold Springs wildfire, Washington, USA

Year of Publication
2013
Publication Type

Given that resource managers rely on computer simulation models when it is difficult or expensive to obtain vital information directly, it is important to evaluate how well a particular model satisfies applications for which it is designed. The Forest Vegetation Simulator (FVS) is used widely for forest management in the US, and its scope and complexity continue to increase.