[MCN] Thinning & prescribed fire meet some promises, others unclear/mixed

[Lance Olsen]

Forest Ecology and Management 1 September 2016, Pages 84-95
[This issue is In Progress but contains articles that are final and 
fully citable]

Tamm Review: Are fuel treatments effective at achieving ecological 
and social objectives? A systematic review
Elizabeth L. Kalies, Larissa L. Yocom Kent,

Highlights
*Thinning and burning fuel treatments reduce fire severity compared 
to untreated areas.
*Treatments reduce wildfire carbon emissions but may not increase 
total carbon storage.
*Treatment effects on understory plants are highly variable.
*Large data gaps remain in treatment effects on many ecological variables.
*Anecdotal evidence suggests treatments can improve outcomes for 
lives and property.

Abstract
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378112716302626

The prevailing paradigm in the western U.S. is that the increase in 
stand-replacing wildfires in historically frequent-fire dry forests 
is due to unnatural fuel loads that have resulted from management 
activities including fire suppression, logging, and grazing, combined 
with more severe drought conditions and increasing temperatures. To 
counteract unnaturally high fuel loads, fuel reduction treatments 
which are designed to reduce fire hazard and improve overall 
ecosystem functioning have been increasing over the last decade. 
However, until recently much of what we knew about treatment 
effectiveness was based on modeling and predictive studies. Now, 
there are many examples of wildfires burning through both treated and 
untreated areas, and the effectiveness of treatments versus no action 
can be evaluated empirically. We carried out a systematic review to 
address the question: Are fuel treatments effective at achieving 
ecological and social (saving human lives and property) objectives? 
We found 56 studies addressing fuel treatment effectiveness in 8 
states in the western US. There was general agreement that 
thin + burn treatments had positive effects in terms of reducing fire 
severity, tree mortality, and crown scorch. In contrast, burning or 
thinning alone had either less of an effect or none at all, compared 
to untreated sites. Most studies focused on carbon storage agreed 
that treatments do not necessarily store more carbon after wildfire, 
but result in less post-wildfire emissions and less carbon loss in a 
wildfire due to tree mortality. Understory responses are mixed across 
all treatments, and the response of other ecological attributes 
(e.g., soil, wildlife, water, insects) to treatment post-wildfire 
represents an important data gap; we provide a detailed agenda for 
future research. Overall, evidence is strong that thin + burn 
treatments meet the goal of reducing fire severity, and more research 
is needed to augment the few studies that indicate treatments protect 
human lives and property.

-- 
*****************************************************************************************
"Some people in the finance industry have a sniffy attitude towards 
academics. (My favourite, probably apocryphal, exchange is as 
follows. Hedge fund manager to academic: "If you're so smart, why 
aren't you rich?" Academic to fund manager: "If you're so rich, why 
aren't you smart?") But academics play a vital role; they are a 
generally unbiased check on the pretensions of financial 
practitioners, with enough technical knowledge to cut through the 
jargon with which Wall Street can confuse the investing public. 
Academic views will change over time; of course they will. But we 
should be glad they are around."

http://www.economist.com/blogs/buttonwood/2016/06/academics-and-investing



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