{"id":64183,"date":"2021-10-21T16:14:16","date_gmt":"2021-10-21T23:14:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/?p=64183"},"modified":"2021-10-21T16:14:16","modified_gmt":"2021-10-21T23:14:16","slug":"less-flammable-forests","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/less-flammable-forests\/","title":{"rendered":"Can communities protect themselves by planting\u00a0less\u00a0flammable forests?\u00a0"},"content":{"rendered":"

As\u00a0increasingly severe wildfires burn more of\u00a0the North American\u00a0West each year,\u00a0how\u00a0people living there\u00a0use\u00a0fuel treatments,\u00a0such as prescribed burns or\u00a0planting\u00a0fire-resistant\u00a0trees\u00a0around their homes,\u00a0can\u00a0determine\u00a0how\u00a0destructive fires will be to communities.\u00a0The National Science Foundation has awarded $2.3 million\u00a0to a\u00a0multi-university\u00a0team, which\u00a0includes\u00a0Regents\u2019\u00a0professor\u00a0<\/span>Michelle Mack<\/span><\/b>, assistant professor\u00a0<\/span>Joseph Little<\/span><\/b>\u00a0and assistant research professor\u00a0<\/span>Xanthe\u00a0Walker,\u00a0<\/span><\/b>to\u00a0develop socially and ecologically feasible\u00a0fire breaks within\u00a0communities\u00a0that are most at\u00a0risk, like\u00a0Alaska and\u00a0western\u00a0Canada.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

The seven-institution team, led by Jennifer Schmidt of\u00a0the\u00a0<\/span>Institute of Social and Economic Research<\/span><\/a>\u00a0(ISER)\u00a0<\/span>a<\/span>t\u00a0the University of Alaska Anchorage,\u00a0includes land managers, economists\u00a0and ecologists from\u00a0the\u00a0<\/span>Center for Ecosystem Science and Society<\/span><\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0The W.\u00a0A.\u00a0Franke College of Business at NAU,\u00a0<\/span>the\u00a0<\/span>University of Colorado<\/span><\/a>, Tanana Chiefs Conference and the\u00a0USFS\u00a0<\/span>Wildfire Research Center (WiR\u0113)<\/span><\/a>. Using this interdisciplinary approach,\u00a0the \u201cSocio-ecological considerations for\u00a0sustainAble\u00a0Fuel treatments to Reduce wildfire Risk (SAFRR)\u201d team\u00a0will\u00a0work with residents to\u00a0design fuel treatments\u00a0that can help protect their homes from wildfire.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>\u201cMany communities in the boreal\u00a0biome\u00a0are bullseyes of flammability,\u201d said Mack, one of the\u00a0co-principal investigators on the\u00a0project.\u00a0\u201cThey are\u00a0surrounded by old,\u00a0highly flammable spruce forests\u00a0maintained by\u00a0years of fire suppression. But\u00a0as plant ecologists, we\u2019ve learned\u00a0that we can\u00a0actually\u00a0use\u00a0trees to protect communities. Hardwood forests burn less severely, and they can\u00a0slow\u00a0fires.\u00a0So\u00a0we\u2019re asking,\u00a0can\u00a0we engineer forests that protect communities in a way that\u00a0works for the people who live there?\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cThese communities really understand their local environments the best, so it\u2019s important for us to work with them when we\u2019re designing fuel treatments,\u201d said Little, a co-principal investigator on the project. \u201cYou don\u2019t want to naively assume that people will be\u00a0OK\u00a0with\u00a0removing vegetation around their home, because maybe that means fewer berries, or fewer moose.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cBy looking at\u00a0existing\u00a0fuel treatments\u00a0and what we know about\u00a0how these forests are\u00a0changing over time, we hope to\u00a0find\u00a0ways to\u00a0nudge natural processes to create\u00a0less\u00a0flammable forests,\u201d said\u00a0Walker, a co-principal investigator on the project.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cSince the 1990s,\u00a0there\u2019s been a dramatic increase in the amount of boreal forest burned each year in Alaska and western Canada,\u201d\u00a0Schmidt\u00a0said. \u201cThis area has experienced some of the most deadly and costly wildfire events in the last decade.\u201d\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cFire is a very real health hazard and stress for people who live in the boreal forest,\u201d Mack\u00a0said. \u201cMost of these boreal fires don\u2019t get suppressed. You can\u2019t put these fires out\u2014only weather puts these fires out.\u00a0Adaptations\u00a0like fire breaks are one of the only things we can do before a fire is there.\u201d<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Little said\u00a0this project builds on research he\u2019s done with rural communities on the Kenai\u00a0Peninsula in Alaska. That work suggested that people tend to pursue fuel treatments their neighbors pursue.\u00a0The SAFRR team\u00a0will apply that knowledge as they engage a wider range of communities\u00a0over the next four years.<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\u201cIt’s a new approach to an older problem,\u00a0and\u00a0I\u00a0think it’s going to be really fruitful,\u201d\u00a0Little\u00a0said.\u00a0<\/span>\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

\"Northern<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Kate Petersen<\/span> | Center for Ecosystem Science and Society<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

As\u00a0increasingly severe wildfires burn more of\u00a0the North American\u00a0West each year,\u00a0how\u00a0people living there\u00a0use\u00a0fuel treatments,\u00a0such as prescribed burns or\u00a0planting\u00a0fire-resistant\u00a0trees\u00a0around their homes,\u00a0can\u00a0determine\u00a0how\u00a0destructive fires will be to communities.\u00a0The National Science Foundation has awarded $2.3 million\u00a0to a\u00a0multi-university\u00a0team, which\u00a0includes\u00a0Regents\u2019\u00a0professor\u00a0Michelle Mack, assistant professor\u00a0Joseph Little\u00a0and assistant research professor\u00a0Xanthe\u00a0Walker,\u00a0to\u00a0develop socially and ecologically feasible\u00a0fire breaks within\u00a0communities\u00a0that are most at\u00a0risk, like\u00a0Alaska and\u00a0western\u00a0Canada.\u00a0 The seven-institution team, led…<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":59,"featured_media":64185,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[11],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-64183","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-research-academics"],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64183","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\/59"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=64183"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/64183\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/64185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=64183"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=64183"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/in.nau.edu\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=64183"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}