Financial Analysis Of Fuel Treatments On National Forests In The Western United States Classic Reprint

Excerpt from Financial Analysis of Fuel Treatments on National Forests in the Western United States Roger D. Fight is a research forest economist (retired) and R. James Barbour is a research forest products technologist, Forestry Sciences Laboratory, po. Box 3890, Portland, OR 97208. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.

Years of fire suppression and increasing constraints on natural and prescribed burning, possibly along with climate change, have altered historical wildfire regimes resulting in increased wildfire severity in the Nation's forests. The growing wildfire threat has motivated increasing interest in reducing hazardous fuels through prescribed burning, thinning, and harvesting. There is debate about whether such fuel treatments are necessary owing to the complexity of the wildfire issue and to general disagreement about whether long-term wildfire impacts present a real problem. This report presents one way of conceptualizing the costs and benefits of fuel treatments and wildfire and reviews issues related to their evaluation. Illustrations. This is a print on demand report.

Analyzes a range of fuel treatments for representative dry forest stands in the Western U.S. dominated by ponderosa pine, Douglas-fir, & pinyon pine. Six silvicultural options (no thinning; thinning from below to 50 trees per acre [tpa], 100 tpa, 200 tpa, & 300 tpa; & prescribed fire) are considered in combination with the surface fuel treatments (no treatment, pile & burn, & prescribed fire), resulting in a range of alternative treatments for each representative stand. Fuel treatment scenarios presented here can be used by resource managers to examine alternatives for Nat. Environ. Policy Act documents & other applications that require scientifically based info. to quantify the effects of modifying forest structure & surface fuels. Illustrations.

Guide to Fuel Treatments analyzes a range of fuel treatments for representative dry forest stands in the Western United States with overstories dominated by ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa), Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii), and pinyon pine (Pinus edulis). Six silvicultural options (no thinning; thinning from below to 50 trees per acre [tpa], 100 tpa, 200 tpa, and 300 tpa; and prescribed fire) are considered in combination with three surface fuel treatments (no treatment, pile and burn, and prescribed fire), resulting in a range of alternative treatments for each representative stand. The Fire and Fuels Extension of the Forest Vegetation Simulator (FFE-FVS) was used to calculate the immediate effects of treatments on surface fuels, fire hazard, potential fire behavior, and forest structure. The FFEFVS was also used to calculate a 50-year time series of treatment effects at 10-year increments. Usually, thinning to 50 to 100 tpa and an associated surface fuel treatment were shown to be necessary to alter potential fire behavior from crown fire to surface fire under severe fire weather conditions. This level of fuel treatment generally was predicted to maintain potential fire behavior as surface fire for 30 to 40 years, depending on how fast regeneration occurs in the understory, after which additional fuel treatment would be necessary to maintain surface fire behavior. Fuel treatment scenarios presented here can be used by resource managers to examine alternatives for National Environmental Policy Act documents and other applications that require scientifically based information to quantify the effects of modifying forest structure and surface fuels.