Forests play a critical role in the global carbon cycle, capturing CO2 through photosynthesis and storing that carbon in forest biomass over long time scales. However, the carbon storage of forests and their ability to offset greenhouse gas emissions depends on forest resilience to disturbance events such as wildfire, drought, and insect outbreaks, which can release CO2 back to the atmosphere.

A growing body of research has shown that prescribed burning and mechanical thinning can reduce the risk of high-severity wildfire as well as increase forest resistance to drought and insect mortality. However, in California, and across the western United States, forest restoration cannot be met with thinning treatments alone due the operational limitations associated with mechanical treatments and the sizeable area in need of restoration treatments. As a result, restoring fire through prescribed fire and managed natural ignitions is the most scalable restoration treatment.

Led by Dr. Matthew Hurteau from the University of New Mexico, this FHRP-funded research project builds upon 25 years of research conducted at the Teakettle Experimental Forest to look at the effects of a catchment-scale prescribed burn on carbon dynamics and ecosystem processes. The prescribed burn follows the 2012-2015 California drought, allowing the project to also assess the challenges widespread tree mortality add to forest restoration treatments. “This project is central to helping us understand whether prescribed fire following a large-scale drought mortality event can still achieve desired outcomes such as limited overstory mortality patch sizes and increased post-fire tree regeneration,” says Hurteau.

Hurteau and his collaborators have completed pre-treatment surveys in the 180-hectare catchment including mapping and measuring trees in 200 established plots as well as surveying surface fuel loads, understory vegetation, and tree regeneration. This inventory has allowed them to quantify the pre-treatment carbon pools (ex. live trees, dead trees, and surface fuels). In addition to assessing the carbon dynamics of a catchment-scale prescribed burn following drought mortality, this project will also serve as a vehicle for interagency collaboration between CAL FIRE and the United States Forest Service. “The goal is that this project will provide a timely opportunity for both CAL FIRE and USFS to work together to achieve common goals and objectives”, says Hurteau.

No publications at this time

For more information on this project please visit the project website: http://www.hurteaulab.org/teakettle-experiment.html

Contact Information:

Professor Matthew Hurteau (PI)

mhurteau@unm.edu

CAL FIRE Forest Health Research Program

FHResearch@fire.ca.gov