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UNDERSTANDING AND PREDICTING CONSEQUENCES OF FIRES ACROSS COLORADO AND WYOMING AND TWO NATIONAL FORESTS.
Author
Marah, Bryn D.
Scasta, John D.
Publisher
Society for Range Management
Publication Year
2017
Body

Wildland fire is a dynamic system that sparks considerable global interest. Regionally, Colorado and Wyoming are western states in the southern Rocky Mountains of the US that experience both prescribed and wild fires annually. Fire is an ecological and social feature of both states that varies across dominant vegetation types, environmental drivers, and social perspectives. Evidence suggests that future fire regimes may include more frequent and intense fires. Moreover, federal agencies are increasingly aware of the need to strategically allow fire to function while continuing to protect life and property. The Grand Mesa, Uncompahgre and Gunnison forest in Colorado and Medicine Bow-Routt National Forest in Colorado and Wyoming experienced several fires in the year of 2016 including the Kelso Fire (Colorado), Beaver Creek Fire (Colorado and Wyoming), and Broadway Fire (Wyoming). The Beaver Creek Fire was highly complex due to the overlap of jurisdictional boundaries, surface ownership, fire weather, acres burned, and cost of the incident. The Storm Peak Wildland Fire Module allowed us to incorporate real time and pre-burn data and footage into our post-fire sampling regime at both the Beaver Creek and Kelso Fires to aid in our analysis. Four different aspects of these fires are currently being examined: 1) vegetative responses to prescribed and wildland fire, 2) invasive species response to wildland fires, 3) hydrophobic conditions associated with wildland fire, and 4) social implications surrounding fire. This study is underway in collaboration with the United States Forest Service, University of Wyoming, and Southern Rockies Fire Science Network. The immediate, post-fire results and implications of the project will be shared during the discussion. Our experience indicates that incorporating incident management with real-time wildland fire modules to generate feedback about fire use and post-fire recovery is an advantage.

Language
English
Resource Type
Text
Document Type
Conference Proceedings
Conference Name
SRM St. George, UT
Collection
SRM Annual Meeting Abstracts