This is something I have wondered about for a while: do dead trees increase fire behavior or severity? I was pretty sure that dead trees without needles or leaves would have less intense fire behavior than live trees, but was not sure about dead trees WITH needles. I would have guessed that a recently killed conifer with most of its needles would burn more intensely than a live tree.
But a study by Monica Bond, Derek Lee, Curtis Bradley, and Chad Hanson concluded that dead conifers in the San Bernardino National Forest, even WITH dead needles, will tend to decrease fire severity once ignition occurs.
Here is an excerpt from their abstract:
…We found no evidence that pre-fire tree mortality influenced fire severity. These results indicate that widespread removal of dead trees may not effectively reduce higher-severity fire in southern California’s conifer forests. We found that sample locations dominated by the largest size class of trees (>61 cm diameter at breast height (dbh)) burned at lower severities than locations dominated by trees 28-60 cm dbh. This result suggests that harvesting larger-sized trees for fire-severity reduction purposes is likely to be ineffective and possibly counter-productive.
This is big, if it also applies to other areas of the country. People panic when they see large tracts of trees that have been killed by drought or insects and go to great lengths, and expense, to cut them down or bring in loggers. If “fire severity” as used by Monica Bond, et al, can be equated to fire behavior, then perhaps we don’t have to hurriedly bring in loggers when large areas are killed by insects or drought. We still need to clear vegetation around structures, of course.
And I would like to thank the authors for publishing the result of their work in an “open access” publication where it is available to everyone with an Internet connection, unlike some other recent studies conducted at taxpayer expense that are not available to taxpayers without paying a hefty fee. We ranted about this issue previously.
Thanks Dick
So I guess that just leaves, what??Necessary bias? Or, just plain old bias?Sorry Emmett, I’m not just trying to be a smart ass here, but by continuing your post on to:
You’re showing bias… What Jack did, was to "prove" the the importance of a concept.You seem to be offering an "opinion" … and all opinions are biased… by their very nature.You did the very same thing at the start of your post, also.
That’s a rather strong accusatory statement, especially the part in bold… can it be proved that reports were changed… or, is this an example of bias?And… yes, I’ve read a fair amount of the haggling, going on, back and forth, about this issue!!OCR
strange- if I add logs to my fireplace, the fire gets bigger- if I remove them, the fire gets smaller.
After 8 years of Gail Norton and Julie MacDonald at the US Department of Interior changing scientist’s reports to meet the Administrations political agenda, it’s not surprising that some folks question the report from the CBD. That said, there are still very reputable scientists who can offer an objective "peer-review" of a paper without allowing unnecessary bias to influence their feedback.One of the best examples is Missoula Fire Lab researcher Jack Cohen who has proven the importance of the 100 foot wildfire ignition zone while former UnderSecretary Mark Rey was trying to harvest logs miles away from any buildings under the guise or "protecting the WUI".
Using soil severity does not necessarily equate to fire behavior, especially as it relates to potential spread, firefighter safety and resistance to control. CBD is either ignorant of the factors involved in the above, or worse yet, purposely avoids the salient parameters to further their own agenda. While this may have been ‘peer reviewed’, the bias is very evident and shows up very well when one looks into the funding sources and the aims of the affiliated groups.
I would take any "research" coming from the Center for Biological Diversity with a grain of salt. Their "research" is often slanted to meet their goals.