The Alaska Reference Database originated as the standalone Alaska Fire Effects Reference Database, a ProCite reference database maintained by former BLM-Alaska Fire Service Fire Ecologist Randi Jandt. It was expanded under a Joint Fire Science Program grant for the FIREHouse project (The Northwest and Alaska Fire Research Clearinghouse). It is now maintained by the Alaska Fire Science Consortium and FRAMES, and is hosted through the FRAMES Resource Catalog. The database provides a listing of fire research publications relevant to Alaska and a venue for sharing unpublished agency reports and works in progress that are not normally found in the published literature.
Type
Topic
Year
Displaying 76 - 100 of 131
Laney
Although ecosystems, humans, and fire have coexisted for millennia, changes in geology, ecology, hydrology, and climate as well as sociocultural, regulatory, and economic factors have converged to make wildland fire management exceptionally challenging for U.S. federal, state,…
Year: 2017
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
Dunn, Thompson, Calkin
The impacts of wildfires have increased in recent decades because of historical forest and fire management, a rapidly changing climate, and an increasingly populated wildland urban interface. This increasingly complex fire environment highlights the importance of developing…
Year: 2017
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
Guyette, Stambaugh, Dey, Muzika
The effects of climate on wildland fire confronts society across a range of different ecosystems. Water and temperature affect the combustion dynamics, irrespective of whether those are associated with carbon fueled motors or ecosystems, but through different chemical, physical…
Year: 2017
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
Knapp, Soulé
We examined relationships between monthly Arctic sea-ice extent (ASIE) and annual wildfire activity for seven regions in the western United States during 1980-2015 to determine if spatio-temporal linkages exist between ASIE, upper-level flow, and surface climatic conditions…
Year: 2017
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
The Prescribed Fire Complexity Rating System Guide establishes interagency prescribed fire complexity analysis standards. The analysis provides a focused, subjective assessment by qualified prescribed fire burn bosses that is evaluated and approved by Agency Administrators, and…
Year: 2017
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
Mell, Linn
The objective of FASMEE is to obtain measurements that can be used to evaluate and advance operational smoke models. Among the focus areas listed in the FON task statements are the modeling of fire growth, fire behavior, and plume development. In current operational models, the…
Year: 2017
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
Heinsch, Andrews, Tirmenstein
The fire characteristics chart is a graphical method of presenting U.S. National Fire Danger Rating System (NFDRS) indexes and components as well as primary surface or crown fire behavior characteristics. Computer software has been developed to produce fire characteristics…
Year: 2017
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
Page, Butler
Wildland firefighters in the US are mandated to identify areas that provide adequate separation between themselves and the flames (i.e. safety zones) to reduce the risk of burn injury. This study presents empirical models that estimate the distance from flames that would result…
Year: 2017
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
Padhi, Shotorban, Mahalingam
A three-dimensional physics-based model was used to investigate the effect of shrub size, shrub separation distance and wind on the burnout times of shrubs. The shrub considered for this study was chamise. Two shrub sizes with different physical dimensions and initial masses…
Year: 2017
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
Thompson, Ager
In this proposal, we outline a methodology for the application of a novel, integrated modeling approach to analyze economic tradeoffs associated with alternative fuel management and suppression policies. The analytical process is designed to specifically target salient questions…
Year: 2017
Type: Project
Source: FRAMES
Jandt
Alaska’s fire managers are well aware that most boreal burning occurs during relatively brief periods of high fire activity. This was well-illustrated in the 2015 fire season (below). There is also evidence to suggest that fires may be more severe (Barrett and Kasischke 2013)…
Year: 2017
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
Jandt
Our Research Brief this month covers a new NASA-funded study led by Sander Veraverbeke of Vrije Universiteit in Amsterdam which found lightning storms to be a main driver of recent large fire seasons in Alaska and Canada. Results of the study are published in the July, 2017…
Year: 2017
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
Higuera, Boschetti
Northern high latitude climates are rapidly changing nearly faster than the rest of the globe, suggesting that fire regimes in these ecosystems may be particularly vulnerable to future change. In Alaska, key JFSP research priorities are to understand climate linkages to past and…
Year: 2017
Type: Project
Source: FRAMES
The significant wildland fire potential forecasts included in this outlook represent the cumulative forecasts of the ten Geographic Area Predictive Services units and the National Predictive Services unit.
Year: 2017
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
Parsons, Linn, Pimont, Hoffman, Sauer, Winterkamp, Sieg, Jolly
Landscape heterogeneity shapes species distributions, interactions, and fluctuations. Historically, in dry forest ecosystems, low canopy cover and heterogeneous fuel patterns often moderated disturbances like fire. Over the last century, however, increases in canopy cover and…
Year: 2017
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
Landry, Matthews
The incomplete combustion of vegetation and dead organic matter by landscape fires creates recalcitrant pyrogenic carbon (PyC), which could be consequential for the global carbon budget if changes in fire regime, climate, and atmospheric CO2 were to substantially affect gains…
Year: 2017
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
Veraverbeke, Rogers, Goulden, Jandt, Miller, Wiggins, Randerson
Changes in climate and fire regimes are transforming the boreal forest, the world’s largest biome. Boreal North America recently experienced two years with large burned area: 2014 in the Northwest Territories and 2015 in Alaska. Here we use climate, lightning, fire and…
Year: 2017
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
Benali, Mota, Carvalhais, Oom, Miller, Campagnolo, Pereira
Aim: While fire is recognized as an integral part of the Earth system, the ability of humans to shape fire regimes both spatially and temporally remains poorly understood. Our goals were to identify the extent of fire regimes exhibiting two annual fire seasons and to investigate…
Year: 2017
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
Pettinari, Chuvieco
Large-scale fire danger assessment has become increasingly relevant in the past few years, and is usually based on weather information. Still, fuel characteristics also play an important role in fire behavior. This study presents a fire behavior simulation based on a global…
Year: 2017
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
Smith
On June 1, 2015, the Forest Service, an agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), celebrated the 100th anniversary of the Branch of Research. Established in 1915 to centralize and elevate the pursuit of research throughout the agency, the Branch of Research focused on…
Year: 2017
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
Rollins, Rodriguez-Franco, Haan, Conard
The Research and Development (R&D) Wildland Fire and Fuels program at the Forest Service, an agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, continues to be an internationally renowned program for generating critical and essential data, knowledge, and applications for all…
Year: 2017
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
Baker, Pierce
Photochemical grid models such as the Community Multiscale Air Quality Model (CMAQ) are used to estimate local to continental scale O3, PM, and haze for scientific and regulatory assessments. Field data from specific and well characterized wildland fires is critically important…
Year: 2017
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
Urbanski
Smoke from wildland fires has a significant impact on public health and transportation safety and presents a serious complication for air regulators seeking to design effective and efficient emission control strategies to meet and maintain air quality standards. Wildland fires…
Year: 2017
Type: Document
Source: FRAMES
Young
Projections of future fire activity, derived from statistical models, are a powerful tool for anticipating 21st-century fire regimes. In previous work, we developed a set of statistical models that captures fire-climate relationships at 30-yr timescales in Alaskan boreal forest…
Year: 2017
Type: Media
Source: FRAMES
Strader
Heidi Strader shares what is known now about climate change and answers questions about its causes and effects.
Year: 2017
Type: Media
Source: FRAMES