United States Department of Restoring Fire-Adapted Agriculture Forest Service Ecosystems: Proceedings of the Pacific Southwest 2005 National Silviculture Research Station Workshop General Technical Report PSW-GTR-203 June 6-10, 2005 Tahoe City, California January 2007 Historic and Future Trends Management Strategies Silvicultural Options Risks And Impacts Abstract Powers, Robert F., tech. editor. 2007. Restoring fire-adapted ecosystems: proceedings of the 2005 national silviculture workshop. Gen. Tech. Rep. PSW-GTR-203. Albany, CA: Pacific Southwest Research Station, Forest Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture. 306 p. Many federal forests are at risk to catastrophic wild fire owing to past management practices and policies. Mangers of these forests face the immense challenge of making their forests resilient to wild fire, and the problem is complicated by the specter of climate change that may affect wild fire frequency and intensity. Some of the Nationʼs leading scientists and practitioner present approaches in tackling the problem. Key words: wild fire, fuel management, thinning, climate change, fire history, resilience The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) prohibits discrimination in all its programs and activities on the basis of race, color, national origin, age, disability, and where applicable, sex, marital status, familial status, parental status, religion, sexual orientation, genetic information, political beliefs, reprisal, or because all or part of an individual's income is derived from any public assistance program. (Not all prohibited bases apply to all programs.) Persons with disabilities who require alternative means for communication of program information (Braille, large print, audiotape, etc.) should contact USDA's TARGET Center at (202) 720-2600 (voice and TDD). To file a complaint of discrimination, write to USDA, Director, Office of Civil Rights, 1400 Independence Avenue, S.W., Washington, D.C. 20250-9410, or call (800) 795-3272 (voice) or (202) 720-6382 (TDD). USDA is an equal opportunity provider and employer. Disclaimer Papers were provided by the authors in camera-ready form for printing. Authors are responsible for the content and accuracy. Opinions expressed may not necessarily reflect the position of the U.S. Department of Agriculture. Restoring Fire-Adapted Ecosystems: Proceedings of the 2005 National Silviculture Workshop June 6-10, 2005 Tahoe City, California Robert F. Powers, Technical Editor v INTRODUCTION AND KEYNOTE ADDRESS vii Introduction and Acknowledgments Robert F. Powers and F. Michael Landram ix Keynote Address The role of silviculture in restoring fire-adapted ecosystems James K. Agee 1 HISTORICAL AND FUTURE TRENDS 3 Forest changes since Euro-American settlement and ecosystem restoration in the Lake Tahoe Basin, USA Alan H. Taylor 21 Silviculture and forest management under a rapidly changing climate Carl N. Skinner 33 MANAGEMENT STRATEGIES 35 Fuels planning: science synthesis and integration Rachel White and Sarah McCaffrey 41 Stewardship and fireshed assessment: a process for designing a landscape fuel treatment strategy Bernhard Bahro, Klaus H. Barber, Joseph W. Sherlock, and Donald A. Yasuda 55 Integrating stand density management with fuel reduction Joseph W. Sherlock 67 Reintroducing fire to the oak forests of Pennsylvania: response of striped maple Patrick H. Brose, Gary W. Miller, and Kurt W. Gottschalksheppa 79 Reintroducing fire in regenerated dry forests following stand-replacing wildfire David W. Peterson, Paul F. Hessburg, Brion Salter, Kevin M. James, Matthew C. Dahlgreen, and John A. Barnes USDA Forest Service Gen.Tech.Rep. PSW-GTR-203. 2007. i 87 Restoring fire-adapted forested ecosystems—research in longleaf pine on the Kisatchie National Forest James D. Haywood 107 SILVICULTURAL OPTIONS 109 Silviculture for the 21st century—objective and subjective standards to guide successful practice James M. Guldin and Russell T. Graham 121 Free selection: a silvicultural option Russell T. Graham, Theresa B. Jain, and Jonathan Sandquist 157 Landscape silviculture for late-successional reserve management S. Hummell and R.J. Barbour 171 SDI-Flex: a new technique of allocating growing stock for developing treat- ment prescriptions in uneven-aged stands Wayne D. Shepperd 181 Gap-based silviculture in a Sierran mixed conifer forest: effects of gap size on early survival and 7-year seedling growth Robert A. York, John J. Battles, and Robert C. Heald 193 Effects of alternative treatments on canopy fuel characteristics in five conifer stands Joe H. Scott and Elizabeth D. Reinhardt 211 RISKS AND IMPACTS 213 The relation between tree burn severity and forest structure in the Rocky Mountains Theresa B. Jain and Russell T. Graham 251 Fire performance in traditional silvicultural and fire and fire surrogate treat- ments in Sierran mixed-conifer forests: a brief summary Jason J. Moghaddas and Scott L. Stephens 261 Delayed conifer tree mortality following fire in California Sharon M. Hood, Sheri L. Smith, and Daniel R. Cluck 285 Effects of fuel reduction treatments on breeding birds in a southern Appalachian upland hardwood forest Aimee L. Tomcho, Cathryn H. Greenburg, J. Drew Lanham, Thomas A. Waldrop, Joseph Tomcho, and Dean Simon 297 POSTER ABSTRACTS 299 Riparian and upland vegetation on the Kings River Experimental Watershed, Sierra Nevada, California Christopher R. Dolanc and Carolyn T. Hunsaker 300 Prescribed burning ineffective for improving turkey habitat on a recently regen- erated mesic site in the southern Appalachian Mountains W. Henry McNab, Ted M. Oprean III, and Erik C. Berg ii USDA Forest Service Gen.Tech.Rep. PSW-GTR-203. 2007. 301 Putting out fire with gasoline: pitfalls in the silvicultural treatment of canopy fuels Christopher R. Keyes and J. Morgan Varner 302 Thinning and underburning effects on ground fuels in Jeffrey pine R.F. Walker, R.M. Fecko, W.B. Frederick, J.D. Murphy, D.W. Johnson, and W.W. Miller 303 Thinning and underburning effects on productivity and mensurational characteristics of Jeffrey pine R.M. Fecko, R.F. Walker, W.B. Frederick, W.W. Miller, and D.W. Johnson 304 Effect of burn residue proximity on growth of 5 planted mixed conifer species after 6 years Robert A. York and Robert C. Heald 305 Soil responses to the fire and fire surrogate study in the Sierra Nevada Emily E.Y. Moghaddas and Scott L. Stephens 306 The effect of mechanical fuel reduction treatments in the wildland-urban interface on the amount and distribution of bark beetle-caused tree mortality Christopher J. Fettig, Joel D. McMillin, John A. Anhold, Shakeeb M. Hamud, Robert R. Borys, and Steven J. Seybold USDA Forest Service Gen.Tech.Rep. PSW-GTR-203. 2007. iii Introduction North America’s forests are magnificent. They include the world's tallest, oldest, and most massive trees and nearly every genus of conifers on Earth. Their history carries a legacy of massive ice that ground mountains to plains and sculpted river valleys, of great landforms that rose to channel air movement and moisture, of recurrent fire that shaped forest succession. These natural forces controlled where forests grew and where they are today. Human influence pales by comparison. Yet forest composition has changed in the span of a century. Except in the West, most of North America's aboriginal forest is gone, changed to young-growth stands, converted to other uses. Still, today’s forests are magnificent by any measure. They are among the most extensive and diverse in the world, and many forests have been protected administratively from further harvests. But the future of our forests depends on today’s management. And sound management centers on the art and science of silviculture. From the perspective of human life spans, North American forests seem unchanging. But change is certain. Climate, seemingly immutable to our parents, is changing. And while the exact causes of climatic change remain arguable, evidence compels us to believe that the future will be different from the past and that we must be ready. Managers must develop strategies for coping with change. One expected change is the nature of wildfire. Our forests—particularly those of the West—are threatened. Each successive year seems marked by a rise in wildfire frequency, extent, and severity. Well-meant policies of decades of fire suppression plus shifts in forest management practices have led to changes in forest structure and diversity, physiological stress, and fuel accumulation. And a mantra is heard that our public forests should be managed toward conditions typifying pre-European settlement. But this is a vain hope akin to putting the genie back into the bottle, because our forests have a new complexion. Many of our forests are urbanized—some as traffic corridors, others as semimanaged interstices in a patchwork of community development. This has produced a mosaic of ownerships and a complexity of management challenges. Yet, as we fret with the bustle of everyday life, forests continue to grow. Change marches inexorably. The threat of catastrophic fire looms large. Restoring fire-adapted or fire-resilient forested ecosystems in the specter of change and uncertainty demands intelligence and creativity. Among our most useful tools are models, both conceptual and mathematical, that project the likely outcomes of specific management strategies. But models are simplifications that are extrapolated to scales ranging from stand groups to landscapes, and those built on empirical data risk being nonfunctional if conditions in the future are different