Thermocouple Probe Orientation Affects Prescribed Fire Behavior Estimation.

Understanding the relationship between fire intensity and fuel mass is essential information for scientists and forest managers seeking to manage forests using prescribed fires. Peak burning temperature, duration of heating, and area under the temperature profile are fire behavior metrics obtained from thermocouple-datalogger assemblies used to characterize prescribed burns. Despite their recurrent usage in prescribed burn studies, there is no simple protocol established to guide the orientation of thermocouple installation. Our results from dormant and growing season burns in coastal longleaf pine ( Mill.) forests in South Carolina suggest that thermocouples located horizontally at the litter-soil interface record significantly higher estimates of peak burning temperature, duration of heating, and area under the temperature profile than thermocouples extending 28 cm vertically above the litter-soil interface ( < 0.01). Surprisingly, vertical and horizontal estimates of these measures did not show strong correlation with one another ( ≤ 0.14). The horizontal duration of heating values were greater in growing season burns than in dormant season burns ( < 0.01), but the vertical values did not indicate this difference ( = 0.52). Field measures of fuel mass and depth before and after fire showed promise as significant predictive variables ( ≤ 0.05) for the fire behavior metrics. However, all correlation coefficients were less than or equal to = 0.41. Given these findings, we encourage scientists, researchers, and managers to carefully consider thermocouple orientation when investigating fire behavior metrics, as orientation may affect estimates of fire intensity and the distinction of fire treatment effects, particularly in forests with litter-dominated surface fuels.

The National Fire and Fire Surrogate study: effects of fuel reduction methods on forest vegetation structure and fuels.

Changes in vegetation and fuels were evaluated from measurements taken before and after fuel reduction treatments (prescribed fire, mechanical treatments, and the combination of the two) at 12 Fire and Fire Surrogate (FFS) sites located in forests with a surface fire regime across the conterminous United States. To test the relative effectiveness of fuel reduction treatments and their effect on ecological parameters we used an information-theoretic approach on a suite of 12 variables representing the overstory (basal area and live tree, sapling, and snag density), the understory (seedling density, shrub cover, and native and alien herbaceous species richness), and the most relevant fuel parameters for wildfire damage (height to live crown, total fuel bed mass, forest floor mass, and woody fuel mass). In the short term (one year after treatment), mechanical treatments were more effective at reducing overstory tree density and basal area and at increasing quadratic mean tree diameter. Prescribed fire treatments were more effective at creating snags, killing seedlings, elevating height to live crown, and reducing surface woody fuels. Overall, the response to fuel reduction treatments of the ecological variables presented in this paper was generally maximized by the combined mechanical plus burning treatment. If the management goal is to quickly produce stands with fewer and larger diameter trees, less surface fuel mass, and greater herbaceous species richness, the combined treatment gave the most desirable results. However, because mechanical plus burning treatments also favored alien species invasion at some sites, monitoring and control need to be part of the prescription when using this treatment.

Reducing airborne ectomycorrhizal fungi and growing non-mycorrhizal loblolly pine (Pinus taeda L.) seedlings in a greenhouse.

Atmospheric spores of ectomycorrhizal (ECM) fungi are a potential source of contamination when mycorrhizal studies are performed in the greenhouse, and techniques for minimizing such contamination have rarely been tested. We grew loblolly pine (Pinus taeda L.) from seed in a greenhouse and inside a high-efficiency particulate air-filtered chamber (HFC) constructed within the same greenhouse. Seedlings were germinated in seven different sand- or soil-based and artificially based growth media. Seedlings grown in the HFC had fewer mycorrhizal short roots than those grown in the open greenhouse atmosphere. Furthermore, the proportion of seedlings from the HFC that were completely non-mycorrhizal was higher than that of seedlings from the greenhouse atmosphere. Seedlings grown in sterilized, artificially based growth media (>50% peat moss, vermiculite, and/or perlite by volume) had fewer mycorrhizal short roots than those grown in sand- or soil-based media. The HFC described here can minimize undesirable ECM colonization of host seedlings in greenhouse bioassays. In addition, the number of non-mycorrhizal seedlings can be maximized when the HFC is used in combination with artificially based growth media.