Catalogue Search | MBRL
Are you sure you want to remove the book from the shelf?
{{itemTitle}}
621
result(s) for
"Forest fires -- United States -- Prevention and control -- History"
Sort by:
Between two fires : a fire history of contemporary America
\"Between Two Fires relates the play-by-play of the fire revolution and its aftermath\"--Provided by publisher.
Book
Between Two Fires
From a fire policy of prevention at all costs to today's restored
burning, Between Two Fires is America's history channeled
through the story of wildland fire management. Stephen J. Pyne
tells of a fire revolution that began in the 1960s as a reaction to
simple suppression and single-agency hegemony, and then matured
into more enlightened programs of fire management. It describes the
counterrevolution of the 1980s that stalled the movement, the
revival of reform after 1994, and the fire scene that has evolved
since then. Pyne is uniquely qualified to tell America's fire
story. The author of more than a score of books, he has told fire's
history in the United States, Australia, Canada, Europe, and the
Earth overall. In his earlier life, he spent fifteen seasons with
the North Rim Longshots at Grand Canyon National Park. In
Between Two Fires , Pyne recounts how, after the Great
Fires of 1910, a policy of fire suppression spread from America's
founding corps of foresters into a national policy that manifested
itself as a costly all-out war on fire. After fifty years of
attempted fire suppression, a revolution in thinking led to a more
pluralistic strategy for fire's restoration. The revolution
succeeded in displacing suppression as a sole strategy, but it has
failed to fully integrate fire and land management and has fallen
short of its goals. Today, the nation's backcountry and
increasingly its exurban fringe are threatened by larger and more
damaging burns, fire agencies are scrambling for funds,
firefighters continue to die, and the country seems unable to come
to grips with the fundamentals behind a rising tide of megafires.
Pyne has once again constructed a history of record that will shape
our next century of fire management. Between Two Fires is
a story of ideas, institutions, and fires. It's America's story
told through the nation's flames.
eBook
Fire management in the American West
Most journalists and academics attribute the rise of wildfires in the western United States to the USDA Forest Service's successful fire-elimination policies of the twentieth century. However, in Fire Management in the American West, Mark Hudson argues that although a century of suppression did indeed increase the hazard of wildfire, the responsibility does not lie with the USFS alone. The roots are found in the Forest Service's relationships with other, more powerful elements of society--the timber industry in particular. Drawing on correspondence both between and within the Forest Service and the major timber industry associations, newspaper articles, articles from industry outlets, and policy documents from the late 1800s through the present, Hudson shows how the US forest industry, under the constraint of profitability, pushed the USFS away from private industry regulation and toward fire exclusion, eventually changing national forest policy into little more than fire policy. More recently, the USFS has attempted to move beyond the policy of complete fire suppression. Interviews with public land managers in the Pacific Northwest shed light on the sources of the agency's struggles as it attempts to change the way we understand and relate to fire in the West. Fire Management in the American West will be of great interest to environmentalists, sociologists, fire managers, scientists, and academics and students in environmental history and forestry.
eBook
Engagement in local and collaborative wildfire risk mitigation planning across the western U.S.—Evaluating participation and diversity in Community Wildfire Protection Plans
Since their introduction two decades ago, Community Wildfire Protection Plans (CWPPs) have become a common planning tool for improving community preparedness and risk mitigation in fire-prone regions, and for strengthening coordination among federal and state land management agencies, local government, and residents. While CWPPs have been the focus of case studies, there are limited large-scale studies to understand the extent of, and factors responsible for, variation in stakeholder participation—a core element of the CWPP model. This article describes the scale and scope of participation in CWPPs across the western United States. We provide a detailed account of participants in over 1,000 CWPPs in 11 states and examine how levels of participation and stakeholder diversity vary as a function of factors related to planning process, planning context, and the broader geographic context in which plans were developed. We find that CWPPs vary substantially both by count and diversity of participants and that the former varies as a function of the geographic scale of the plan, while the latter varies largely as a function of the diversity of landowners within the jurisdiction. More than half of participants represented local interests, indicating a high degree of local engagement in hazard mitigation. Surprisingly, plan participation and diversity were unrelated to wildfire hazard. These findings suggest that CWPPs have been largely successful in their intent to engage diverse stakeholders in preparing for and mitigating wildfire risk, but that important challenges remain. We discuss the implications of this work and examine how the planning process and context for CWPPs may be changing.
Journal Article
Are High-Severity Fires Burning at Much Higher Rates Recently than Historically in Dry-Forest Landscapes of the Western USA?
Dry forests at low elevations in temperate-zone mountains are commonly hypothesized to be at risk of exceptional rates of severe fire from climatic change and land-use effects. Their setting is fire-prone, they have been altered by land-uses, and fire severity may be increasing. However, where fires were excluded, increased fire could also be hypothesized as restorative of historical fire. These competing hypotheses are not well tested, as reference data prior to widespread land-use expansion were insufficient. Moreover, fire-climate projections were lacking for these forests. Here, I used new reference data and records of high-severity fire from 1984-2012 across all dry forests (25.5 million ha) of the western USA to test these hypotheses. I also approximated projected effects of climatic change on high-severity fire in dry forests by applying existing projections. This analysis showed the rate of recent high-severity fire in dry forests is within the range of historical rates, or is too low, overall across dry forests and individually in 42 of 43 analysis regions. Significant upward trends were lacking overall from 1984-2012 for area burned and fraction burned at high severity. Upward trends in area burned at high severity were found in only 4 of 43 analysis regions. Projections for A.D. 2046-2065 showed high-severity fire would generally be still operating at, or have been restored to historical rates, although high projections suggest high-severity fire rotations that are too short could ensue in 6 of 43 regions. Programs to generally reduce fire severity in dry forests are not supported and have significant adverse ecological impacts, including reducing habitat for native species dependent on early-successional burned patches and decreasing landscape heterogeneity that confers resilience to climatic change. Some adverse ecological effects of high-severity fires are concerns. Managers and communities can improve our ability to live with high-severity fire in dry forests.
Journal Article
The Northeast
Repeatedly, if paradoxically, the Northeast has led national
developments in fire. Its intellectuals argued for model preserves
in the Adirondacks and at Yellowstone, oversaw the first mapping of
the American fire scene for the 1880 census, staffed the 1896
National Academy of Sciences forest commission that laid down
guidelines for the national forests, and spearheaded legislation
that allowed those reserves to expand by purchase. It trained the
leaders who staffed those protected areas and produced most of
America's first environmentalists. The Northeast has its roster of
great fires, beginning with dark days in the late 18th century,
followed by a chronicle of conflagrations continuing as late as
1903 and 1908, with a shocking after-tremor in 1947. It hosted the
nation's first forestry schools. It organized the first interstate
(and international) fire compact. And it was the Northeast that
pioneered the transition to the true Big Burn-industrial
combustion-as America went from burning living landscapes to
burning lithic ones. In this new book in the To the Last Smoke
series, renowned fire expert Stephen J. Pyne narrates this history
and explains how fire is returning to a place not usually thought
of in America's fire scene. He examines what changes in climate and
land use mean for wildfire, what fire ecology means for cultural
landscapes, and what experiments are underway to reintroduce fire
to habitats that need it. The region's great fires have gone; its
influence on the national scene has not. The Northeast: A Fire
Survey samples the historic and contemporary significance of
the region and explains how it fits into a national cartography and
narrative of fire. Included in this volume: How the region shaped
America's understanding of and policy toward fire How fire fits
into the region today What fire in the region means for the rest of
the country What changes in climate, land use, and institutions may
mean for the region
eBook
Scorched earth : how the fires of Yellowstone changed America
In 1988, forest fires raged in Yellowstone National Park, destroying more than a million acres. As the nation watched the land around Old Faithful burn, a longstanding conflict over fire management reached a fever pitch. Should the U.S. Park and Forest Services suppress fires immediately or allow some to run their natural course? When should firefighters be sent to battle the flames and at what cost?
In Scorched Earth, Barker, an environmental reporter who was on the ground and in the smoke during the 1988 fires, shows us that many of today's arguments over fire and the nature of public land began to take shape soon after the Civil War. As Barker explains, how the government responded to early fires in Yellowstone and to private investors in the region led ultimately to the protection of 600 million acres of public lands in the United States. Barker uses his considerable narrative talents to bring to life a fascinating, but often neglected, piece of American history. Scorched Earth lays a new foundation for examining current fire and environmental policies in America and the world.
Our story begins when the West was yet to be won, with a colorful cast of characters: a civil war general and his soldiers, America's first investment banker, railroad men, naturalists, and fire-fighters-all of whom left their mark on Yellowstone. As the truth behind the creation of America's first national park is revealed, we discover the remarkable role the U.S. Army played in protecting Yellowstone and shaping public lands in the West. And we see the developing efforts of conservation's great figures as they struggled to preserve our heritage. With vivid descriptions of the famous fires that have raged in Yellowstone, the heroes who have tried to protect it, and the strategies that evolved as a result, Barker draws us into the very heart of a debate over our attempts to control nature and people.
This entertaining and timely book challenges the traditional views both of those who arrogantly seek full control of nature and those who naively believe we can leave it unaltered. And it demonstrates how much of our broader environmental history was shaped in the lands of Yellowstone.
eBook
Long-Term Seeding Outcomes in Slash Piles and Skid Trails after Conifer Removal
Conifer removal in interior woodland ecosystems of the western US is a common management treatment used to decrease fire hazard and shift woodlands to more historical states. Woody material is frequently removed by skidding material off site and via slash pile burning. Assessing the long-term outcomes of seeding treatments after such ground disturbing activities is critical for informing future management and treatment strategies. Using two designed experiments from a central Oregon juniper woodland, we resampled slash piles and skid trails 8 years after seeding. Our objectives were to assess the long-term vegetation response to conifer removal, ground disturbance, and seeding source (cultivar and local) in slash piles and skid trails. We found that seeded species persisted in the long term, but abundance patterns depended on the species, seed source, and the type of disturbance. In general, there were more robust patterns of persistence after pile burning compared to skid trails. Seeding also suppressed exotic grass cover in the long term, particularly for the local seed source. However, the invasion levels we report are still problematic and may have impacts on biodiversity, forage and fire behavior. Our short-term results were not predictive of longer-term outcomes, but short- and long-term patterns were somewhat predictable based on species life history traits and ecological succession. The use of a mix of species with different life history traits may contribute to seeding success in terms of exotic grass suppression. Lastly, our results suggest that locally adapted seed sources may perform as well or better compared to cultivars. However, more aggressive weed treatments before and after conifer removal activities and wider seeding application may be needed to effectively treat exotic grass populations.
Journal Article
Global and regional vegetation fire monitoring from space : planning a coordinated international effort
Introduction Increasing conflagrations of forests and other lands throughout the world during the 1980s and 1990s have made fires in forest and other vegetation emerge as an important global concern. Both the number and severity of wildfires (accidental fires) and the application of fire for land-use change, seem to have increased dramatically compared to previous decades of the twentieth century. The adverse consequences of extensive wildfires cross national boundaries and have global impacts. Fire regimes are changing with climate variability and population dynamics. Satellite remote sensing technology has the potential to play an important role for monitoring fires and their consequences, as well as in operational fire management. In response to this need as well as to respond to other needs for more rapid progress in forest observation, in 1997 the Committee on Earth Observation Satellites (CEOS) initiated Global Observation of Forest Cover (GOFC) as an international pilot project to test the concepts of an Integrated Global Observing System. The GOFC program is currently part of the Global Terrestrial Observing System (GTOS). GOFC was designed to bring together data providers and information users to make information products from satellite and in-situ observations of forests more readily available worldwide. Fire Monitoring and Mapping was formed as one of three basic components of GOFC. This book contains eighteen contributions authored by scientists who represent the most active international research and development institutions, aiming at coordinating and improving international efforts for user-oriented systems and products. These papers were initially presented at a GOFC Fire Workshop held at the Joint Research Centre, Ispra. The volume is a contribution of the GOFC Forest Fire Monitoring and Mapping Implementation Team to the
Interagency Task Force Working Group Wildland Fire of the UN International Strategy for Disaster Reduction (ISDR).
eBook