The ecology and management of wildfire in the American West poses a daunting challenge. This project takes advantage of a unique opportunity to directly measure the impacts of wildfire on forest health in the forests of the western United States. In 2013, the American Fire burned through 43 square miles of the Tahoe National Forest in California. In the process, it coincidentally burned through an existing research study that was designed to evaluate the effectiveness of fuel management on tree survival, new seedling establishment, ground vegetation, wildlife, and water quality and quantity after a fire, where the fire treatments were to be imposed later in a small-scale experimental mode. In fact, all the pre-fire measurements had just been completed on an extensive network of tree and fuel inventory plots that were both untreated and treated when the American Fire broke out. This new award will enable the re-measurement of all the plots immediately after the wildfire, but before planned salvage logging operations begin to test whether the fuel management treatments in fact moderated the fire effects and reduced the damage to the forests. This research will be conducted in the context of the prevailing management regime for National Forests in the West. And since it will be done in partnership with local federal and state forest managers, the results will immediately inform the future management of these forests. This circumstance also enables an exceptional learning and teaching opportunity. For example, focused workshops and webinars will be held to explain, discuss, and dissect the meaning of the results of this project for management and natural resources policy.
Wildfires in the forests of the Sierra Nevada Mountains tend to burn more intensely and larger than they have in the past. The consequences on ecosystem structure and function can be transformational. At the same time, harvest and thinning operations that could reduce fire risks raise concerns about impacts on forest health. Fire is a landscape level process that is most often studied with smaller-scale experiments, field-parameterized models, or retrospective field studies. It is very rare when there are opportunities to empirically test wildfire effects and fire treatments with the level of control offered by a paired watershed study with a before-after-control-impact design, as presented in this circumstance. This project will very directly advance our understanding by quantifying the inherent trade-offs associated with wildfire and treatments to reduce wildfire impacts.
