Wild land Fire Management

Large Wildfires in Eastern Washington
Team Report Due on June 4
Questions for the field trip Cases 1 and 2.
Case 1: Tripod Complex Fire
The 2006 Tripod Complex initiated as two lightning strikes in late July and over the course of six weeks,
spread over 175,000 acres of mixed conifer forest in the Okanogan National Forest. The Tripod Complex
was one of the largest fires over the past 50 years in Washington State and cost $82.8 million for fire
suppression.
Of the many fuel treatments, the Methow Valley Ranger District implemented over the past decade,
several were used for burnout operations to combat the wildfires outside the town of Winthrop,
Washington. An additional 19 thinned units and 10 thinned and prescribed-burned units were burned by
the wildfire. The serendipitous involvement of so many fuel treatments in a wildfire and the availability
of pre-wildfire data provided a rare opportunity to study the efficacy of fuel treatments in reducing fire
severity and fighting wildfires.
Several studies have been implemented in the Tripod Complex Fire. Your task for this part of the report is
to summarize the main findings from those papers to answer the following questions:

1. Did fuel treatments and past management mitigate fire severity in the Tripod Complex Fire?
   You can consult the following articles:
   a. Susan J. Prichard, David L. Peterson, Kyle Jacobson. 2010. Fuel treatments reduce the
   severity of wildfire effects in dry mixed conifer forest, Washington, USA. Canadian Journal
   of Forest Research, 2010, 40:1615-1626, https://doi.org/10.1139/X10-109
   https://www.fs.fed.us/pnw/pubs/journals/pnw_2009_prichard002.pdf
   b. SJ Prichard, MC Kennedy. 2014. Fuel treatments and landform modify landscape patterns of
   burn severity in an extreme fire event. Ecological Applications, 2014 -
   https://doi.org/10.1890/13-0343.1
   https://www.fs.fed.us/pnw/pubs/journals/pnw_2014_prichard001.pdf
   c. Christina Lyons-Tinsley, David L. Peterson. 2011. Surface fuel treatments in young,
   regenerating stands affect wildfire severity in a mixed conifer forest, eastside Cascade Range,
   Washington, USA. Forest Ecology and Management. Volume 270, 15 April 2012, Pages 117-
2. https://www.fs.fed.us/pnw/pubs/journals/pnw_2012_lyons-tinsley001.pdf
3. What are the drives that can explain fire severity (landform, weather, fuels, etc)? Were the fire
   extent and severity predictable?
   a. Haugo, R. D., Kellogg, B. S., Cansler, C. A., Kolden, C. A., Kemp, K. B., Robertson, J. C.,
   Metlen, K. L., Vaillant, N. M., and Restaino, C. M. 2019. The missing fire: quantifying
   human exclusion of wildfire in Pacific Northwest forests, USA. Ecosphere 10( 4):e02702.
   10.1002/ecs2.2702
   https://esajournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/epdf/10.1002/ecs2.2702
   b. Littell, J.S., McKenzie, D., Peterson, D.L., and Westerling, A.L. 2009. Climate and wildfire
   area burned in western U.S. ecoprovinces, 1916-2003. Ecological Applications 19: 1003-
   1021.
   https://www.fs.fed.us/pnw/pubs/journals/pnw_2009_littell001.pdf
4. What was the impact of fuels and fuel treatments on carbon emissions in the Tripod fire?
   a. Restaino, J. C., and D. L. Peterson. 2013. Wildfire and fuel treatment effects on forest carbon
   dynamics in the western United States. Forest Ecology and Management 303:46–60.
   https://www.fs.fed.us/pnw/pubs/journals/pnw_2013_restiano001.pdf
   b. Stacy A. Drury1, Narasimhan (Sim) Larkin, Tara T. Strand, Shih Ming Huang, Scott J.
   Strenfel1, Erin M. Banwell, Theresa E. O’Brien, and Sean M. Raffuse. 2014. Intercomparison