In spring 2020, the US Forest Service’s Wood Innovations Grant program awarded the SWERI Wood Utilization Team, a $260,000 grant to lead a Wood Utilization Team across three states. The team will focus on increasing forest restoration efforts through the expansion of forest product business clusters in the Southwest.
With this funding, the team plans to build on the research and development infrastructure of three university-based research units that comprise the Southwest Ecological Restoration Institutes, or SWERI—the New Mexico Forest and Watershed Restoration Institute, the Colorado Forest Restoration Institute and the ERI at Northern Arizona University—to support the expansion of forest product business clusters through focused workshop training events, applied research studies, and forest product marketing efforts.
Across the Southwest, projects that thin and remove small-diameter trees to restore forest health and prevent catastrophic wildfire are often hindered by a lack of markets for the low-value wood and biomass needed to fund operations. For several years, the Forest Service, industry partners, ecologists, and stakeholders have worked to overcome this barrier to reinvigorate the regional forest products industry and spur forest restoration efforts.
“Funding from the Forest Service’s Wood Innovations Grant program allows us to creatively grow the forest products industry sector and associated markets, which in turn supports forest restoration activities in the Southwest,” said Dr. Han-Sup Han, director of ERI’s forest operations and wood utilization program.
To learn more about the 2020 Forest Service’s Wood Innovations Grants, click here.
And, check out this NAU News story, which details the SWERI Wood Utilization Team project, its team members and project goals.
Fact Sheet: The Cost of Forest Thinning Operations in the Western United States: A Literature Review
An increase in frequent, catastrophic wildfires is a challenge to forests and communities across the western United States. Forest thinning treatments can reduce the risk of catastrophic fires and improve forest health. However, the cost of treatments varies depending on factors such as slope gradients, small-diameter trees, silvicultural prescriptions, and harvesting systems and methods. Land managers often use thinning treatments as a management approach, and broader knowledge on the productivity and costs of harvesting machinery can assist in their planning efforts.
Special Report: Managed Wildfire: A Research Synthesis and Overview
All wildfires in the United States are managed, but the strategies used to manage them vary by region and season. “Managed wildfire” is a response strategy to naturally ignited wildfires; it does not prioritize full suppression and allows the fire to fulfill its natural role on the landscape, meeting objectives such as firefighter safety, resource benefit, and community protection. This wildfire management strategy can be effective for reducing tree densities, landscape homogeneity, fuel load continuity, and future fire behavior, while also working to reintroduce fire to fire-prone ecosystems. Research on managed wildfire has expanded significantly in recent years. This synthesis is designed to distill the current science on managed wildfire to foster a wide discussion of the strategy among managers, practitioners, and the knowledgeable public.
Journal Article: Climate influences on future fire severity: a synthesis of climate‑fire interactions and impacts on fire regimes, high‑severity fire, and forests in the western United States
Increases in fire activity and changes in fire regimes have been documented in recent decades across the western United States. Climate change is expected to continue to exacerbate impacts to forested eco-systems by increasing the frequency, size, and severity of wildfires across the western United States (US). Warming temperatures and shifting precipitation patterns are altering western landscapes and making them more susceptible to high-severity fire. Increases in large patches of high-severity fire can result in significant impacts to landscape processes and ecosystem function and changes to vegetation structure and composition. In this synthesis, we examine the predicted climatic influence on fire regimes and discuss the impacts on fire severity, vegetation dynamics, and the interactions between fire, vegetation, and climate.