Managing wildland fire in the U.S. is a challenge increasing in complexity & magnitude. The goals & actions presented in this report encourage a proactive approach to wildland fire to reduce its threat. Five major topic areas on the subject are addressed: the role of wildland fire in resource management; the use of wildland fire; preparedness & suppression; wildland/urban interface protection; & coordinated program management. Also presented are the guiding principle that are fundamental to wildland fire management & recommendations for fire management policies. Photos, graphs, & references.
The Wildland Fire Incident Management Field Guide is a revision of what used to be called the Fireline Handbook, PMS 410-1. This guide has been renamed because, over time, the original purpose of the Fireline Handbook had been replaced by the Incident Response Pocket Guide, PMS 461. As a result, this new guide is aimed at a different audience, and it was felt a new name was in order.
Fire, both inevitable and ubiquitous, plays a crucial role in North American ecosystems. But as necessary as fire is to maintaining healthy ecosystems, it threatens human lives and livelihoods in unacceptable ways. This volume explores the rich yet largely uncharted terrain at the intersection of fire policy, fire science, and fire management in order to find better ways of addressing this pressing dilemma. Written in clear language, it will help scientists, policy makers, and the general public, especially residents of fire-prone areas, better understand where we are today in regard to coping with wildfires, how we got here, and where we need to go. Drawing on abundant historical and analytic information to shed new light on current controversies, Living with Fire offers a dynamic new paradigm for coping with fire that recognizes its critical environmental role. The book also tells how we can rebuild the important ecological and political processes that are necessary for finding better ways to cope with fire and with other complex policy dilemmas.
Even before the myth of Prometheus, fire played a crucial ecological role around the world. Numerous plant communities depend on fire to generate species diversity in both time and space. Without fire such ecosystems would become sterile monocultures. Recent efforts to prohibit fire in fire dependent communities have contributed to more intense and more damaging fires. For these reasons, foresters, ecologists, land managers, geographers, and environmental scientists are interested in the behavior and ecological effects of fires. This book will be the first to focus on the chemistry and physics of fire as it relates to the ways in which fire behaves and the impacts it has on ecosystem function. Leading international contributors have been recruited by the editors to prepare a didactic text/reference that will appeal to both advanced students and practicing professionals.
This state-of-knowledge review about the effects of fire on soils and water can assist land and fire managers with information on the physical, chemical, and biological effects of fire needed to successfully conduct ecosystem management, and effectively inform others about the role and impacts of wildland fire. Chapter topics include the soil resource, soil physical properties and fire, soil chemistry effects, soil biology responses, the hydrologic cycle and water resources, water quality, aquatic biology, fire effects on wetland and riparian systems, fire effects models, and watershed rehabilitation.
This engaging volume explores the management of fire in one of the world’s most flammable landscapes: Australia’s tropical savannas, where on average 18% of the landscape is burned annually. Impacts have been particularly severe in the Arnhem Land Plateau, a centre of plant and animal diversity on Indigenous land. Culture, Ecology and Economy of Fire Management in North Australian Savannas documents a remarkable collaboration between Arnhem Land’s traditional landowners and the scientific community to arrest a potentially catastrophic fire-driven decline in the natural and cultural assets of the region – not by excluding fire, but by using it better through restoration of Indigenous control over burning. This multi-disciplinary treatment encompasses the history of fire use in the savannas, the post-settlement changes that altered fire patterns, the personal histories of a small number of people who lived most of their lives on the plateau and, critically, their deep knowledge of fire and how to apply it to care for country. Uniquely, it shows how such knowledge and commitment can be deployed in conjunction with rigorous formal scientific analysis, advanced technology, new cross-cultural institutions and the emerging carbon economy to build partnerships for controlling fire at scales that were, until this demonstration, thought beyond effective intervention.
Delving deep into the Australian landscape and the environmental challenges we face, Fire Country is a powerful account from Indigenous land management expert Victor Steffensen on how the revival of cultural burning practices, and improved 'reading' of country, could help to restore our land. From a young age, Victor has had a passion for traditional cultural and ecological knowledge. This was further developed after meeting two Elders, who were to become his mentors and teach him the importance of cultural burning. Developed over many generations, this knowledge shows clearly that Australia actually needs fire. Moreover, fire is an important part of a holistic approach to the environment, and when burning is done in a carefully considered manner, this ensures proper land care and healing. Victor's story is unassuming and honest, while demonstrating the incredibly sophisticated and complex cultural knowledge that has been passed down to him, which he wants to share with others. As global warming sees more parts of our planet burning, this book emphasises the value of Indigenous knowledge systems. There is much evidence that, if adopted, it could greatly benefit the land here in Australia and around the world.
This edited volume presents original scientific research and knowledge synthesis covering the past, present, and potential future fire ecology of major US forest types, with implications for forest management in a changing climate. The editors and authors highlight broad patterns among ecoregions and forest types, as well as detailed information for individual ecoregions, for fire frequencies and severities, fire effects on tree mortality and regeneration, and levels of fire-dependency by plant and animal communities. The foreword addresses emerging ecological and fire management challenges for forests, in relation to sustainable development goals as highlighted in recent government reports. An introductory chapter highlights patterns of variation in frequencies, severities, scales, and spatial patterns of fire across ecoregions and among forested ecosystems across the US in relation to climate, fuels, topography and soils, ignition sources (lightning or anthropogenic), and vegetation. Separate chapters by respected experts delve into the fire ecology of major forest types within US ecoregions, with a focus on the level of plant and animal fire-dependency, and the role of fire in maintaining forest composition and structure. The regional chapters also include discussion of historic natural (lightning-ignited) and anthropogenic (Native American; settlers) fire regimes, current fire regimes as influenced by recent decades of fire suppression and land use history, and fire management in relation to ecosystem integrity and restoration, wildfire threat, and climate change. The summary chapter combines the major points of each chapter, in a synthesis of US-wide fire ecology and forest management into the future. This book provides current, organized, readily accessible information for the conservation community, land managers, scientists, students and educators, and others interested in how fire behavior and effects on structure and composition differ among ecoregions and forest types, and what that means for forest management today and in the future.
The U.S. Forest Service celebrates its centennial in 2005. With a new preface by the author, this edition of Harold K. Steen’s classic history (originally published in 1976) provides a broad perspective on the Service’s administrative and policy controversies and successes. Steen updates the book with discussions of a number of recent concerns, among them the spotted owl issue; wilderness and roadless areas; new research on habitat, biodiversity, and fire prevention; below-cost timber sales; and workplace diversity in a male-oriented field.
