Test Blog Grid

Plovers, prairie dogs, and fire: Managing semi-arid rangelands for wildlife and livestock

New synthesis from the Great Plains Fire Science Exchange on Mountain plover and prescribed fire research. Introduction: The mountain plover (Charadrius montanus) is a bird species with very specific habitat needs when it breeds in the shortgrass and mixed grass regions of the western Great Plains. Plovers are a ground-nesting bird with cryptic coloring that…
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Quantitative Wildfire Risk Assessment (QWRA)

A workflow and tools to perform a Quantitative Wildfire Risk Assessment (QWRA) from the project to the unit scale is now available in IFTDSS. QWRA: https://iftdss.firenet.gov/firenetHelp/help/pageHelp/content/30-tasks/qwra/qwraabout.htm QWRA Webinar: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1FsCk34cjec&feature=youtu.be Additioanal Resources from IFTDSS: https://iftdss.firenet.gov/landing_page/ Photo by Tyler Gilbert, The Ember Alliance. CopperHill Prescribed Fire. New Mexico, 2019. The Ember Alliance acknowledges this image was taken…
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Real Earth Interface

RealEarth is a data discovery and visualization platform developed at SSEC/CIMSS at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Web Interface: https://bit.ly/2D5jYag Data Visualizer: http://re.ssec.wisc.edu/doc/
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WFEIS: Wildland Fire Emissions Information System

WFEIS is a web-based tool that provides users a simple interface for calculating wildland fire emissions across the US and Canada (beta). WFEIS integrates geospatial burned area, fuel moisture, and fuel loading data layers with the US Forest Service’s Consume model to calculate emissions for user-specified locations and date ranges. WFEIS is built entirely from open-source software components. Data can be requested and…
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Drying rates of masticated fuelbeds

Science spotlight from the Rocky Mountain Research Station about the drying rates of masticated fuelbeds. View here: https://research.fs.usda.gov/treesearch/60657 Thumbnail photo by Pam Sikkink.
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Fire and Smoke Map

The Fire and Smoke Map displays information on ground level air quality monitors recording fine particulates (PM2.5) from smoke and other sources, as well as information on fires, smoke plume locations, and special statements about smoke issued by various sources. This map is a collaborative effort between the U.S. Forest Service led Interagency Wildland Fire…
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Mapping Fuels for Regional Smoke Management and Emissions Inventories Final Report

View the full report here Abstract: Fuels are highly variable and dynamic in space and time, and fuel loading can vary considerably even within fine spatial scales and within specific fuel types, such as downed wood or organic soils. Given this inherent variability in fuel loadings, it is not good practice to represent all instances…
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North American Wildland Fuels Database

NAWFD aggregates fuel loading information from 26,620 field sites compiled from 271 data sources. Each data point is assigned to an EVT Group fuelbed. Probability distributions are generated for each fuel stratum within each fuelbed. Prichard, S. J., Kennedy, M. C., Andreu, A. G., Eagle, P. C., French, N. H., & Billmire, M. (2019). Next‐generation biomass mapping for regional emissions and carbon…
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The effects of prescribed fire on wildfire regimes and impacts: A framework for comparison; Tamm Review

Abstract: Prescribed fire can result in significant benefits to ecosystems and society. Examples include improved wildlife habitat, enhanced biodiversity, reduced threat of destructive wildfire, and enhanced ecosystem resilience. Prescribed fire can also come with costs, such as reduced air quality and impacts to fire sensitive species. To plan for appropriate use of prescribed fire, managers…
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Epidemic model shows how COVID-19 could spread through firefighting camps

With a busy fire season already upon us, researchers at Colorado State University (CSU) looked into the potential for a massive outbreak of COVID-19 at a large fire camp. A large fire camp has a high potential for disaster among the transient, high-density workforce which comprises these camps. The team from CSU “developed an epidemiological…
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