The Fire and Environmental Research Application Team (or FERA) from the USFS Pacific Wildland Fire Sciences Lab have several new products, papers, and projects to share with you!
Check out the FCCS fuelbed maps for Alaska, the Alaska boreal fire-history synthesis and lit review, and this new article on the relationship between climate and fire.
National- and regional-scale fuelbed GIS layers for the Fuel Characteristic Classification System (FCCS) are available and more are in the works. Currently, you can download layers for the United States (conterminous states and Alaska) at the 1-km and 30-m scales.
This new literature review and synthesis of Alaskan boreal fire-history will provide new reference information for both the Alaska Fire and Fuels Research Map and the pre-existing Alaska Reference Database. This research will be published as a PNW Research Station general technical report, and also submitted to a peer-reviewed journal.
Anticipating future forest-fire regimes under changing climate requires that scientists and natural resource managers understand the factors that control fire across space and time. Development of local and regional fire-scar networks facilitates study of broad-scale synchrony between climate and fire, which may help to identify or predict widespread fire years.
This information was adapted from the “FERA Fire Research News Update — July 2011” announcement mailing. To subscribe to their mailing list visit: http://lists.oregonstate.edu/mailman/listinfo/pnw_fire_research_news.
AK Fire Science Highlights 