{"id":40243,"date":"2015-11-06T13:07:50","date_gmt":"2015-11-06T20:07:50","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/stage.headlessnauedu-b6hgdzckfdgxgzhe.westus-01.azurewebsites.net\/?p=40243"},"modified":"2015-11-11T09:27:20","modified_gmt":"2015-11-11T16:27:20","slug":"mixed-conifer-forests-at-risk-for-high-severity-wildfire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/mixed-conifer-forests-at-risk-for-high-severity-wildfire\/","title":{"rendered":"Mixed-conifer forests at risk for high-severity wildfire"},"content":{"rendered":"

Northern Arizona University scientists are calling for accelerated restoration of mixed-conifer forests in a paper<\/a>\u00a0published this month in Forest Ecology and Management<\/em>. These landscapes are at extreme risk for uncharacteristic wildfire because of tree density, fire suppression and warmer temperatures.<\/p>\n

Mixed-conifer forests are a combination of conifers, including pine trees, and broad-leaved trees such as elm, oak and maple trees at high elevations. The mixed-conifer forests, which comprise approximately\u00a0two to three percent of the southwestern forests, support a variety of unique habitats\u00a0and several endangered species.<\/p>\n

\u201cWhat we need to do now is provide for the future and create more resilient mixed-conifer forests,\u201d said Michael Stoddard<\/strong>,\u00a0research specialist with NAU\u2019s Ecological Restoration Institute and lead author on the paper with contributors Andrew Sanchez Meador, Pete Ful<\/strong>\u00e9 <\/strong>and Julie Korb<\/strong>. \u201cWe\u2019ve shown in this case study that thinning and burning is a good solution to mitigate some of the problems.\u201d<\/p>\n

“From a land management perspective, there are numerous problems in the forest, setting the stage for catastrophic wildfire, and in some cases, the potential permanent loss of mixed-conifer forests,” Stoddard said. Overcrowded forests and an abundance of smaller, shade intolerant trees like White Fir are creating ladder fuels, which allow fire easily into the tree canopies.<\/p>\n

\"Mixed<\/a>
Mixed-conifer forests comprise about two to three percent of the forest landscape.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cThe scenario is serious and when you throw warmer temperatures in the mix, the forest is susceptible not only to fire, but to pathogens and bug outbreaks,\u201d Stoddard said.<\/p>\n

Stoddard and his collaborators call for increases in forest thinning and controlled burning to improve resiliency of the mixed-conifer landscapes and protect diverse habitats for species.<\/p>\n

In the future, Stoddard predicts more managed wildfires as an increasingly preferred method of forest management. When lightning starts a forest fire, instead of putting the fire out, land managers can allow the fire to burn while monitoring its progress, a method of forest thinning that is less expensive than mechanical thinning.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Northern Arizona University scientists are calling for accelerated restoration of mixed-conifer forests in a paper\u00a0published this month in Forest Ecology and Management. These landscapes are at extreme risk for uncharacteristic wildfire because of tree density, fire suppression and warmer temperatures. Mixed-conifer forests are a combination of conifers, including pine trees, and broad-leaved trees such as…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":46,"featured_media":40249,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[1085,1086,1065],"class_list":["post-40243","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-research-academics","tag-eri","tag-mike-stoddard","tag-nau-forestry"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40243","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/46"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=40243"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40243\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40249"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=40243"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=40243"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=40243"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}