Abstract
Wildfires and post-fire logging and planting have a lasting influence on the quantity and arrangement of live and dead vegetation, which can, in turn, affect the behavior of future fires. In 2002, the Biscuit Fire re-burned 38,000 ha of mixed-conifer/evergreen hardwood forest in southwestern Oregon that had burned heterogeneously during the 1987 Silver Fire and then was subject, in part, to post-fire logging and planting. We measured vegetation cover and crown damage from at temporal sequence (1987, 2000, and 2002) of digital aerial photo-plots (plot size = 6.25 ha) within managed and unmanaged portions of the twice-burned landscape. We estimated the strength and nature of relationships between crown damage in the two fires while also accounting for the influence of several vegetation, topographic, weather, and management variables. On average, unmanaged plots within the reburn area had 58% of their live crown cover scorched or consumed by the Biscuit Fire (median = 64%). The level of re-burn crown damage was strongly related to the level of crown damage during the Silver Fire. Typically, the areas that burned severely in the Silver Fire succeeded to a mix of shrubs and tree regeneration (i.e. shrub-stratum vegetation), which then experienced high levels of Biscuit Fire damage. In contrast, the level of tree-stratum damage in the Biscuit Fire was largely independent of Silver Fire damage. Within plots that were salvage-logged then planted after the Silver Fire, on average 98% of the vegetation cover was damaged by the Biscuit Fire (median = 100%). Within the plots that experienced complete crown damage in the Silver Fire but were left unmanaged, on average 91% of the vegetation cover was damaged by the Biscuit Fire (median = 95%). Our findings suggest that in productive fire-prone landscapes, a post-fire mosaic of young regenerating vegetation can influence the pattern of crown damage in future wildfires.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Agee JK (1991) Fire history along an elevational gradient in the Siskiyou Mountains, Oregon. Northwest Sci 65(4):188–199
Agee JK (1993) Fire ecology of Pacific northwest forests. Island Press, Washington, DC
Agee JK (2005) The complex nature of mixed severity fire regimes. In: Taylor L, Zelnik J (eds) Mixed severity fire regimes: ecology and management. Association of Fire Ecology, Spokane, Washington
Agee JK, Huff MH (1987) Fuel succession in a western hemlock—Douglas fir forest. Can J For Res 17:697–704
Ager AA, Finney MA, Kerns BK, Maffei H (2007) Modeling wildfire risk to northern spotted owl (Strix occidentalis caurina) habitat in Central Oregon, USA. For Ecol Manag 246:45–56
Anderson HE (1982) Aids to determining fuel models for estimating fire behavior. In: USDA Forest Service Intermountain Forest and Range Experiment Station, Ogdon, UT, p 22
Baker WL, Veblen TT, Sherriff RL (2007) Fire, fuels and restoration of ponderosa pine-Douglas fir forests in the Rocky Mountains, USA. J Biogeogr 34:251–269
Beers TW, Dress PE, Wensel LC (1966) Aspect transformation in site productivity research. J For 64:691–692
Bessie WC, Johnson EA (1995) The relative importance of fuels and weather of fire behavior in subalpine forests. Ecology 76:747–762
Bigler C, Kulakowski D, Veblen TT (2005) Multiple disturbance interactions and drought influence fire severity in Rocky Mountain subalpine forests. Ecology 86:3018–3029
Bormann B, Hormann P, Darbyshire R, Morrissette B (2008) Intense forest wildfire sharply reduces mineral soil C and N: the first direct evidence. Can J For Res 38:2771–2783
Breiman L (2001) Random forests. Machine Learn 45:5–32
Brown JK, Reinhardt ED, Kramer KA (2003) Coarse woody debris: managing benefits and fire hazard in the recovering forest. In: USDA Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station, Ogdon, UT, p 16
Campbell JL, Donato DC, Azuma DL, Law BE (2007) Pyrogenic carbon emission from a large wildfire in Oregon, United States. J Geophys Res 112:1–12
Collins BM, Miller JD, Thode AE, Kelly M, van Wagtendonk JW, Stephens SL (2009) Interactions among wildland fires in a long-established Sierra Nevada natural fire area. Ecosystems 12:114–128
Covington WW, Moore MM (1994) Southwestern ponderosa pine forest structure: changes since Euro-American settlement. J For 92:39–47
Cutler DR, Edwards TC, Beard KH, Cutler A, Hess KT, Gibson J, Lawler JJ (2007) Random forests for classification in ecology. Ecology 88:2783–2792
Daly C, Gibson WP, Taylor GH, Johnson GL, Pasteris P (2002) A knowledge-based approach to the statistical map** of climate. Climate Res 22:99–113
De’ath G, Fabricius KE (2000) Classification and regression trees: a powerful yet simple technique for ecological data analysis. Ecology 81:3178–3192
Despain DG, Sellers RE (1977) Natural fire in Yellowstone National Park. Western Wildlands, pp 21–24
Donato DC, Fontaine JB, Campbell JL, Robinson WD, Kauffman JB, Law BE (2006) Post-wildfire logging hinders regeneration and increases fire risk. Science 311:352
Donato DC, Fontaine JB, Robinson WD, Kauffman JB, Law BE (2009) Vegetation response to short interval between high-severity wildfires in a mixed-evergreen forest. J Ecol 97:142–154
Finney MA, McHugh C, Grenfell IC (2005) Stand- and landscape-level effects of prescribed burning on two Arizona wildfires. Can J For Res 35:1714–1722
Franklin J, Dyrness C (1988) Natural vegetation of Oregon and Washington. OSU Press, Corvallis, Oregon
GAO (2004) Biscuit fire: analysis of fire response, resource availability, and personnel certification standards. In: General Accounting Office
Gorte RL (2006) Forest fire/wildfire protection. In Congressional Research Service, Washington D.C., p 30
Graham R (2003) Hayman fire case study. USFS General Technical Report RMRS-GTR-114
Gray A, Franklin JF (1997) Effects of multiple fires on the structure of southwestern Washington forests. Northwest Sci 71:174–185
Hobbs S, Tesch S, Owston P, Stewart R, Tappeiner J, Wells G (1992) Reforestation practices in southwestern Oregon and Northern California. Forest Research Laboratory, Corvallis, Oregon
Hothorn T, Hornik K, Zeileis A (2006) Unbiased recursive partitioning: a conditional inference framework. J Comput Graph Stat 15:651–674
Jain TB, Pilliod D, Graham R (2004) Toungue-tied. Wildfire July. pp 22–66
Kobziar LN, McBride JR, Stephens SL (2009) The efficacy of fire and fuels reduction treatments in a Siera Nevada Pine plantation. Int J Wildland Fire 18
Kokaly RF, Rockwell BW, Haire SL, King TVV (2007) Characterization of post-fire surface cover, soils, and burn severity at the Cerro Grande Fire, New Mexico, using hyperspectral and multispectral remote sensing. Remote Sens Environ 106:305–325
Liaw A, Wiener M (2002) Classification and regression by random forest. R News 2:18–22
Lutes DC, Keane JF, Caratti CH, Key CH, Benson NC, Gangi LJ (2004) FIREMON: fire effects monitoring and inventory system. In. USDA Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station, Ogden, UT, p 400
McIver JD, Ottmar R (2007) Fuel mass and stand structure after post-fire logging of severely burned ponderosa pine forest in northeastern Oregon. For Ecol Manag 238:268–279
Miller JD, Thode AE (2007) Quantifying burn severity in a heterogeneous landscape with a relative version of the delta normalize burn ratio. Remote Sens Environ 109:66–80
Miller JD, Yool SR (2002) Map** forest post-fire canopy consumption in several overstory types using multi-temporal Landsat TM and ETM data. Remote Sens Environ 82:481–496
Minnich RA (1983) Fire mosaics in southern California and northern Baja California. Science 219:1287–1294
Odion D, Frost E, Strittholt J, Jiang H, Dellasala D, Moritz M (2004) Patterns of fire severity and forest conditions in the western Klamath Mountains, California. Conserv Biol 18:927–936
Paine RT, Tegner MJ, Johnson EA (1998) Compounded perturbations yield ecological surprises. Ecosystems 1:535–545
Perry DA (1994) Forest ecosystems. John Hopkins University Press, Baltimore
Peterson GD (2002) Contagious disturbance, ecological memory, and the emergence of landscape pattern. Ecosystems 5:329–338
Poff RJ (1989) Compatibility of timber salvage operations with watershed values. In: General Technical Report. US Forest Service, pp 137–140
R Development Core Team (2006) R: a language and environment for statistical computing. In: R Foundation for Statistical Computing, Vienna, Austria
Raymond CL, Peterson DL (2005) Fuel treatments alter the effects of wildfire in a mixed-evergreen forest, Oregon, USA. Can J For Res 35:2981–2995
Reider DA (1988) National update: California conflagration. J For 86:5–12
Roloff GJ, Mealey SP, Clay C, Barry J (2004) Evaluating risks associated with forest management scenarios in areas dominated by mixed-severity fire regimes in southwest Oregon. In: Mixed severity fire regimes: ecology and management. Washington State University, Spokane, WA
Romme WH (1982) Fire and landscape diversity in subalpine forests of Yellowstone National Park. Ecol Monogr 52:199–221
RSNF (2004) Biscuit fire recovery project, final environmental impact statement. In: USDA Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Region, Medford, Oregon
Sandberg DV, Ottmar RD, Cushon GH (2001) Characterizing fuels in the 21st century. Int J Wildland Fire 10:381–387
Schoennagel T, Veblen TT, Romme WH (2004) The interaction of fire, fuels, and climate across Rocky Mountain forests. Bioscience 54:661–676
Sessions J, Bettinger P, Buckman R, Newton M, Hamann AJ (2004) Hastening the return of complex forests following fire: the consequences of delay. J For 102:38–45
Shatford JPA, Hibbs DE, Puettmann KJ (2007) Conifer regeneration after forest fire in the Klamath-Siskiyous: how much, how soon? J For 105:139–146
Skinner CN (1995) Change in spatial characteristics of forest openings in the Klamath Mountains of northwestern California. Landscape Ecol 10(4):219–228
Stephens SL, Moghaddas JJ (2005) Silvicultural and reserve impacts on potential fire behavior and forest conservation: twenty-five years of experience from Sierra Nevada mixed conifer forests. Biol Conserv 125:369–379
Stuart JD, Grifantini MC, Fox L (1993) Early successional pathways following wildfire and subsequent silvicultural treatment in Douglas-fir/hardwood forests, northwestern California. For Sci 39:561–572
Taylor AH, Skinner CN (2003) Spatial patterns and controls on historical fire regimes and forest structure in the Klamath Mountains. Ecol Appl 13(3):704–719
Thompson JR, Spies TA (2009) Vegetation and weather explain variation in crown damage within a large mixed severity wildfire. For Ecol Manag 258:1684–1694
Thompson JR, Spies TA, Ganio LM (2007) Reburn severity in managed and unmanaged vegetation in a large wildfire. Proc Nat Acad Sci 104:10743–10748
Turner MG, Romme WH, Tinker DB (2003) Surprises and lessons from the 1988 Yellowstone fires. Front Ecol 1:351–358
USDA (2002) Biscuit fire chronology. Rogue Siskiyou and six rivers national forest, Medford
Weatherspoon CP, Skinner CN (1995) An assessment of factors associated with damage to tree crowns from the 1987 wildfires in northern California. For Sci 41:430–451
Wimberly MC, Kennedy RSH (2008) Spatially explicit modeling of mixed-severity fire regimes and landscape dynamics. For Ecol Manag 254:511–523
Wimberly MC, Reilly MJ (2007) Assessment of fire severity and species diversity in the southern Appalachians using Landsat TM and ETM + imagery. Remote Sens Environ 108:189–197
Acknowledgments
This project was funded by the Joint Fire Science Program. We thank Keith Olsen and Duck Creek Inc for technical help and Jessica Halofsky, Tom Atzet, Warren Cohen, and Rick Miller for helpful comments on an earlier draft.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Thompson, J.R., Spies, T.A. Factors associated with crown damage following recurring mixed-severity wildfires and post-fire management in southwestern Oregon. Landscape Ecol 25, 775–789 (2010). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-010-9456-3
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-010-9456-3