This project is aimed at elucidating the effect of interactions of fire, insect outbreaks, windthrow, and climate on fuel and fire behavior using simulation modeling. This modeling is fit to historical climate and disturbance histories developed from tree-ring reconstructions at 22 sites in mixed-conifer forests across a climate gradient from northeastern Oregon to western Montana.

For more information, please see our main project website, http://geography.uoregon.edu/gavin/jfsp.html.

PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATORS

Dan Gavin, University of Oregon, Department of Geography; Aquila Flower University of Oregon, Department of Geography; Russ Parsons, Research Ecologist; Emily K. Heyerdahl, Research Forester; and Greg Cohn,Forestry Technician

GOALS AND OBJECTIVES

We will test three hypotheses: H1: Climate directly influences fuel dynamics through rates of establishment and mortality. H2: Climate, such as prolonged drought, and disturbance history predispose stands to subsequent disturbance. H3: The strength and type of disturbance interactions vary among climatic regions. While fire and insect outbreak histories have already been reconstructed by us and others in this region, unfortunately they rarely have been reconstructed at the same site. We will take advantage of prior work by reconstructing fire histories at sites with existing insect histories and vice versa as well as sampling both at a few new sites. We will use a mechanistic, process-driven stand dynamics model (FIRE-BGC) to examine how interactions of historical climate and disturbances influenced fuel profiles through time. We will use a physics-based dynamic fire model (Wildland-urban interface Fire Dynamics Simulator or WFDS) to examine how these fuel profiles affected potential fire behavior through time.

FUNDING ORGANIZATIONS

This research is funded by Joint Fire Science Program under Project JFSP 09-1-06-5, the Rocky Mountain Research Station, and the University of Oregon.

PRODUCTS AND PUBLICATIONS

Visit the main project page, http://geography.uoregon.edu/gavin/jfsp.html, for additional information.