Wildfire Wednesdays #132: Wildfire Resilience Science Round-Up

Hello and happy spring, FACNM!

Four years ago this week, Fire Adapted Communities New Mexico started this newsletter with the intent to parse through trustworthy sources for relevant fire preparedness information, recommendations, and tips to bring to readers across the Southwest. The content and format have evolved since its inception, but one essential part of the newsletter has remained constant throughout the years: our commitment to be informed of, and able to incorporate, the best available science into our understanding of fire and our relationship to it. Today’s Wildfire Wednesday revisits some science we’ve shared over the years and shares a round-up of some of the most recent regional fire science from the Southwest Fire Science Consortium.

Today’s Wildfire Wednesday features:

• Southwest Research Publications: a new service from the SW Fire Science Consortium with a roundup of the latest relevant publications (August 2023 - February 2024)

• Throwback! Webinars from this newsletter’s sweet sixteen (Wildfire Wednesday #16)

  • Preparations for Businesses to be Resilient in the Face of Wildfire

• Additional events and resources

  • In the news

  • Webinars

Take care and enjoy the spring blooms,
Rachel

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Southwest Research Publications

Sharing the latest wildfire research relevant to the Southwest

Selected articles are presented below based on their relevance and accessibility to the public. For a full round-up of the latest science and to view publications from earlier in 2023, visit the SWFSC website!

Open access articles

Human Dimensions of Fire

• Measuring the long-term costs of uncharacteristic wildfire: a case study of the 2010 Schultz Fire in Northern Arizona

• Social science to advance wildfire adaptation in the southwestern United States: a review and future research directions

Safety, Health, & Well-being

• The effect of mild to moderate COVID-19 infection on the cardiorespiratory fitness of firefighters

• Multiple Criteria Decision Making (MCDM)-Based Wildfire Risk Assessment: A Case Study on the State of Arizona

Watersheds & Hydrology

• The importance of monsoon precipitation for foundational tree species across the semiarid Southwestern US

• Development of a general protocol for rapid response research on water quality disturbances and its application for monitoring the largest wildfire recorded in NM

Indigenous & Cultural Fire

• The impacts of climate change, energy policy, and traditional ecological practices on future firewood availability for Dine (Navajo) People

Fuels Reduction & Restoration

• Riparian vegetation response amid variable climate conditions across the Upper Gila River watershed: informing Tribal restoration priorities

Fire Regimes & Fire History

• Fire regimes over a large elevational gradient in San Francisco Peaks/Dook’o’oosłííd, AZ

• How fire regimes and fire effects have changed in Sonoran Desert scrublands

Climate Change & Carbon

• Ocean-forcing of cool season precipitation drives ongoing and future decadal drought in Southwestern North America 

• Mechanisms of a Meteorological Drought Onset: Summer 2020 to Spring 2021 in Southwestern North America

• Identifying opportunity hot spots for reducing the risk of wildfire-caused carbon loss in western US conifer forests

Wildlife

• Foraging Behavior Response of Small Mammals to Different Burn Severities

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Other relevant articles (not open access)

Fire Behavior

• Metrics and considerations for evaluating how forest treatments alter wildfire behavior and effects

Fire Ecology

• Refuge-yeah or refuge-nah? Predicting locations of forest resistance and recruitment in a fiery world

• Mesic mixed-conifer forests are resilient to both historical high-severity fire and contemporary reburns in the US Rocky Mountains

• Ability of seedlings to survive heat and drought portends future demographic challenges for five southwestern US conifers

Fire Regimes & Fire History

• Contemporary wildfires are more severe compared to the historical reference period in Western US dry conifer forests

• Long-term landscape evolution in response to climate change, ecosystem dynamics, and fire in a basaltic catchment on the Colorado Plateau

• Fire refugia are robust across Western US forested ecoregions, 1986-2021

Vegetation Change, Regeneration & Recovery

• Vegetation change over 140 years in a sagebrush landscape in the Rio Grande del Norte National Monument, NM

Watersheds & Hydrology

• Climate change impacts on water resources and sustainable water management strategies in North America

Wildland-Urban Interface (WUI)

• Estimating proximity effects to wildfire fuels treatments on house prices in Cibola National Forest, NM

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Throwback to Science from Our Sweet Sixteen

Business resilience and wildfire

Living in a fire adapted area means many things, but what does it mean for businesses and the local economy? In May 2019, the Island Park Sustainable Fire Community in Idaho tackled this question. Their ultimate takeaways were that, in practice, business resilience involves both helping to prepare businesses to operate through wildfire and helping businesses thrive in a fire-prone environment. Wildfires pose a serious threat to a community’s continuity and can have devastating effects on the small businesses that depend on it. Business resiliency and risk mitigation strategies help to defend communities from losses and are especially important for small businesses as they experience the highest risk in proximity to wildfire. Read the full write-up to glean all of these lessons learned.

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Events and Resources

In the news

2023-2024 All Hands All Lands Winter Pile Squad: a story about fire, snow, wet boots, and building wildfire resilience in northern New Mexico.

About the squad: this StoryMap from the All Hands All Lands Burn Team discusses the concept of AHAL, the work accomplished by this collaborative burn team over winter 2023-2024, and how this work aligns with the stewardship of fire adapted forests and use of prescribed burning as advocated in the Forest Stewards Guild’s 2021 Policy Statement on Fire, Forest Management, and Communities. In light of the 2022 Hermits Peak-Calf Canyon fire, federal fire agencies and their partners instituted a strategic pause on all prescribed fire activity, during which they researched and released recommendations on how to make this essential forest and community resiliency tool safer. One key takeaway from the recommendations was the need for larger and more diverse burn teams - that is, more boots on the ground, more eyes on the fire, and more perspectives and a greater breadth of experience contributing to the decision of whether or not to burn. The AHAL burn team fills that gap and makes it possible to meet the spirit and letter of this recommendation during collaborative burns. The winter pile squad, active between November and April, adds capacity to the type of prescribed fire which happens during the cooler months - slash pile burning.

Accomplishments: During the winter season, the Pile Squad assisted with 8 controlled burns, helping to accomplish 1,116 acres of high-priority forest restoration. Much of this work was completed in close proximity to communities and was within the wildland-urban interface (WUI). When not actively burning or patrolling, the pile squad assisted with forest thinning and slash management to prepare for future burns in areas such as the Rio de Las Trampas Forest Council’s Community Forestry plot in between the communities of Trampas and El Valle. They also invested in training and hands-on experiences with city and county fire departments to advance their professional skillsets.

Webinars

Friday, March 29 from 12:00-1:00pm: What is the Community Navigators Program?
FACNM is launching its spring webinar series on March 29th! Join Gabe Kohler and Emery Cowan as they introduce the national and regional intent of the Community Navigators Program and discuss how communities across the state can access this resource. Learn more by visiting the FACNM Events page!

Learn more and register for the full spring webinar series from FACNM at www.facnm.org/events