Policy barriers and opportunities for prescribed fire application in the western United States

2019 ◽  
Vol 28 (11) ◽  
pp. 874 ◽  
Author(s):  
Courtney A. Schultz ◽  
Sarah M. McCaffrey ◽  
Heidi R. Huber-Stearns
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Air Quality ◽  
Land Management ◽  
Prescribed Fire ◽  
Western United States ◽  
Management Tool ◽  
Major Barrier ◽  
Policy Barriers ◽  
Barriers And Opportunities

Prescribed fire is an important management tool on US federal lands that is not being applied at the necessary or desired levels. We investigated the role of policy barriers and opportunities for prescribed fire application on US Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management lands in the western United States. We conducted 54 semi-structured interviews with federal and state land managers and air quality regulators, and with several non-federal partners. We found that lack of adequate capacity and funding were the most commonly cited barriers to increasing application of prescribed fire. Interviewees also emphasised that owing to a lack of incentives and the prevalence of risk aversion at multiple agency levels, active prescribed fire programs depend on the leadership and commitment of individual decision-makers and fire managers. Successful approaches also rely on collaborative forums and positions that allow communication, problem-solving and resource sharing among federal and state partners, and that facilitate dialogue between air-quality and land managers. We did not find that air quality regulation was consistently cited as a major barrier, except in specific locations. Our findings highlight the importance of contextualised investigation into policy barriers and the role of collaborative and multilevel governance approaches for addressing complex land management challenges.

scholarly journals A Review of Community Smoke Exposure from Wildfire Compared to Prescribed Fire in the United States

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kathleen M. Navarro ◽  
Don Schweizer ◽  
John R. Balmes ◽  
Ricardo Cisneros
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Particulate Matter ◽  
Land Management ◽  
Prescribed Fire ◽  
Wildland Fire ◽  
The United States ◽  
Smoke Exposure ◽  
Management Tool ◽  
Wildfire Smoke ◽  
Scientific Papers

Prescribed fire, intentionally ignited low-intensity fires, and managed wildfires, wildfires that are allowed to burn for land management benefit, could be used as a land management tool to create forests that are resilient to wildland fire. This could lead to fewer large catastrophic wildfires in the future. However, we must consider the public health impacts of the smoke that is emitted from wildland and prescribed fire. The objective of this synthesis is to examine the differences in ambient community-level exposures to particulate matter (PM2.5) from smoke in the United States from two smoke exposure scenarios – wildfire fire and prescribed fire. A systematic search was conducted to identify scientific papers to be included in this review. Web of Science Core Collection and PubMed for scientific papers, and Google Scholar were used to identify any grey literature or reports to be included in this review. Sixteen studies that examined particulate matter exposure from smoke were identified for this synthesis – nine wildland fire studies and seven prescribed fire studies. PM2.5 concentrations from wildfire smoke were found to be significantly lower than reported PM2.5 concentrations from prescribed fire smoke. Wildfire studies focused on assessing air quality impacts to communities that were nearby fires and urban centers that were far from wildfires. However, the prescribed fire studies used air monitoring methods that focused on characterizing exposures and emissions directly from and next to the burns. This review highlights a need for a better understanding of wildfire smoke impact over the landscape. It is essential for properly assessing population exposure to smoke from different fire types.

Wildfire Occurrence in Aspen in the Interior Western United States

1987 ◽  
Vol 2 (3) ◽  
pp. 73-76 ◽  
Author(s):  
Norbert V. DeByle ◽  
Collin D. Bevins ◽  
William C. Fischer
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Populus Tremuloides ◽  
Prescribed Fire ◽  
Western United States ◽  
National Forest ◽  
Quaking Aspen ◽  
Wildfire Occurrence ◽  
Management Intervention ◽  
Forest Lands

Abstract The western United States contains more than 7 million acres of quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides). On the majority of this acreage, aspen sprouted as even-aged stands after fires in the last 150 years. For several reasons, however, fire evidently is no longer playing its historic role of killing and regenerating western aspen stands. A survey was made of wildfire occurrence from 1970 through 1982 in aspen stands on National Forest lands in three Forest Service Regions. The survey data, expanded to include all aspen acreage, revealed that an average of 600 acres are annually consumed by fire. At this rate, it would require about 12,000 years to burn the entire aspen type in the West. During this time span, without management intervention, seral aspen will probably be replaced by conifers, and stable aspen stands may become all-aged and perhaps less productive. Use of prescribed fire is recommended. West. J. Appl. For. 2(3):73-76, July 1987.

scholarly journals Springtime high surface ozone events over the western United States: Quantifying the role of stratospheric intrusions

2012 ◽  
Vol 117 (D21) ◽  
pp. n/a-n/a ◽  
Author(s):  
Meiyun Lin ◽  
Arlene M. Fiore ◽  
Owen R. Cooper ◽  
Larry W. Horowitz ◽  
Andrew O. Langford ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Surface Ozone ◽  
High Surface ◽  
Western United States ◽  
Stratospheric Intrusions

scholarly journals The Practice and Potential of Agroforestry in the Southeastern United States

EDIS ◽  
1969 ◽  
Vol 2004 (8) ◽  
Author(s):  
Sarah W. Workman ◽  
Samuel C. Allen
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Land Management ◽  
Southeastern United States ◽  
White Paper ◽  
Forest Resources ◽  
Management Tool ◽  
University Of Florida ◽  
Agricultural Sciences ◽  
Extension Professionals

The purpose of this instructional document—officially called a white paper—is to help farmers, landowners, extension professionals and policymakers develop solutions to some of the problems they or their clients face, using agroforestry as a land management tool. This will be done by presenting readers with the various opportunities available in agroforestry, based on a review of current and potential practices in the southeastern United States. This document is Circular 1446, one of a series through the Center for Subtropical Agroforestry (CSTAF), School of Forest Resources and Conservation, Institute of Food and Agricultural Sciences, University of Florida. First Published: June 2004. https://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/fr146

scholarly journals Estimating Fuel Consumption for the Upper Coastal Plain of South Carolina

2010 ◽  
Vol 34 (1) ◽  
pp. 5-12 ◽  
Author(s):  
Scott L. Goodrick ◽  
Dan Shea ◽  
John Blake
Keyword(s):  
South Carolina ◽  
Air Quality ◽  
Fuel Consumption ◽  
Prescribed Fire ◽  
Coastal Plain ◽  
Prescribed Burning ◽  
Management Tool ◽  
Fuel Load ◽  
Trade Offs ◽  
Continued Use

Abstract Recent changes in air quality regulations present a potential obstacle to continued use of prescribed fire as a land management tool. Lowering of the acceptable daily concentration of particulate matter from 65 to 35 μg/m3 will bring much closer scrutiny of prescribed burning practices from the air quality community. To work within this narrow window, land managers need simple tools to allow them to estimate their potential emissions and examine trade-offs between continued use of prescribed fire and other means of fuels management. A critical part of the emissions estimation process is determining the amount of fuel consumed during the burn. This study combines results from a number of studies along the Upper Coastal Plain of South Carolina to arrive at a simple means of estimating total fuel consumption on prescribed fires. The result is a simple linear relationship that determines the total fuel consumed as a function of the product of the preburn fuel load and the burning index of the National Fire Danger Rating System.

scholarly journals The contribution of marine organics to the air quality of the western United States

2010 ◽  
Vol 10 (15) ◽  
pp. 7415-7423 ◽  
Author(s):  
B. Gantt ◽  
N. Meskhidze ◽  
A. G. Carlton
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Air Quality ◽  
San Francisco ◽  
Atmospheric Chemistry ◽  
Environmental Protection Agency ◽  
Regional Scale ◽  
The United States ◽  
Coastal Areas ◽  
Western United States ◽  
The Us

Abstract. The contribution of marine organic emissions to the air quality in coastal areas of the western United States is studied using the latest version of the US Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) regional-scale Community Multiscale Air Quality (CMAQv4.7) modeling system. Emissions of marine isoprene, monoterpenes, and primary organic matter (POM) from the ocean are implemented into the model to provide a comprehensive view of the connection between ocean biology and atmospheric chemistry and air pollution. Model simulations show that marine organics can increase the concentration of PM2.5 by 0.1–0.3 μg m−3 (up to 5%) in some coastal cities such as San Francisco, CA. This increase in the PM2.5 concentration is primarily attributed to the POM emissions, with small contributions from the marine isoprene and monoterpenes. When marine organic emissions are included, organic carbon (OC) concentrations over the remote ocean are increased by up to 50% (25% in coastal areas), values consistent with recent observational findings. This study is the first to quantify the air quality impacts from marine POM and monoterpenes for the United States, and it highlights the need for inclusion of marine organic emissions in air quality models.

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