Harvest of dead timber following wildfire is contentious because of a perception that the benefits are outweighed by environmental costs. One primary concern is the potential for increased erosion susceptibility associated with timber extraction (i.e. salvage logging) and site preparation.

Across the western US, the two most prevalent native forest insect pests are mountain pine beetle (MPB; Dendroctonus ponderosae; a bark beetle) and western spruce budworm (WSB; Choristoneura freemani; a defoliator).

Fuel reduction treatments are implemented in the forest surrounding the wildland–urban interface (WUI) to provide defensible space and safe opportunity for the protection of homes during a wildfire.

Mastication is an increasingly common fuels treatment that redistributes “ladder” fuels to the forest floor to reduce vertical fuel continuity, crown fire potential, and fireline intensity, but fuel models do not exist for predicting fire behavior in these fuel types.

Fuel consumption specifies the amount of vegetative biomass consumed during wildland fire. It is a two-stage process of pyrolysis and combustion that occurs simultaneously and at different rates depending on the characteristics and condition of the fuel, weather, topography, and in the case of prescribed fire, ignition rate and pattern.

Quaking aspen, the most widespread tree species in North America, reproduces primarily by resprouting from roots. In some stands, mortality from fire encourages sprouting and prevents conifers from eventually replacing aspen. In other areas, aspen can form stable communities that do not require fire to regenerate or persist.

In temperate conifer forests of the Western USA, there is active debate whether fuels reduction treatments and bioenergy production result in decreased carbon emissions and increased carbon sequestration compared to a no-action alternative.

Projecting future distributions of ecosystems or species climate niches has widely been used to assess the potential impacts of climate change. However, variability in such projections for the future periods, particularly the variability arising from uncertain future climates, remains a critical challenge for incorporating these projections into climate change adaptation strategies.

Wildfire effects upon riparian plant community structure, composition, and distribution may strongly influence the dynamic relationships between riparian vegetation and stream ecosystems. However, few studies have examined the influence of fire on these processes.

We conducted a comparative hazard assessment for 325,000 ha in a fire-prone area of southwest Oregon, USA. The landscape contains a variety of land ownerships, fire regimes, and management strategies.