The University of Arizona

Southwest Fire Science Consortium Webinar - 5/18/2011 - Fuels Treatments for Mixed Conifer Forests

Southwest Fire Science Consortium Webinar

Title: Fuels Treatment Practices for Mixed Conifer Forests in the Southwest

This webinar will introduce the latest in the Joint Fire Science Program's series of guides to fuels treatment practices. Dr. Zander Evans will present the new guide to Southwestern mixed conifer forests. The webinar will cover the guide's definition of mixed conifer, past land use and management activities, fire regimes and historic conditions, and impact of altered fire regimes in mixed conifer forests of the southwest. Since Euro-American settlement, many mixed conifer forests have become more homogeneous and can therefore facilitate larger, higher-severity fires than those that occurred historically. Increasing heterogeneity in mixed conifer forests at the landscape scale to approximate historic conditions is important for achieving many management objectives, from fuel reduction to wildlife habitat. Dr. Evans will also discuss effectiveness and impacts of different fuels treatment techniques such as prescribed fire, silvicultural treatments, and combinations of cutting and burning in mixed conifer forests. The Guide also draws on interviews with 75 managers and experts and the webinar will include the synthesis of their insights into the impediments to management and ways of overcoming them. For example, smoke management and wildlife habitat protections are two common issues that can make treatments more complicated, though not impossible.


 UA SNRE is a member institution in the Southwest Fire Science Consortium