Pacific Southwest

Title: Fire in Wildland ecosystems—opening comments

Author: Nichols, Tom

Date: 1995

Source: In: Weise, David R.; Martin, Robert E., technical coordinators. The Biswell symposium: fire issues and solutions in urban interface and wildland ecosystems; February 15-17, 1994; Walnut Creek, California. Gen. Tech. Rep. PSW-GTR-158. Albany, CA: Pacific Southwest Research Station, Forest Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture; p. 49-50

Station ID: GTR-PSW-158

Description: More than 25 years ago, the pioneering work in fire ecology by Harold Biswell and others encouraged the incorporation of prescribed fire into fire management policies. However, the use in California of prescribed fire in fuels treatment, wilderness management, or ecosystem maintenance programs has not been particularly extensive. Only a fraction of wilderness areas, for example, have a prescribed natural fire program. In forests and brushlands around the State, natural and activity fuels continue to accumulate, and wildfires are becoming increasingly difficult, if not impossible in some situations, to suppress. Reasons for the gap between land management objectives and results with regard to prescribed fire include lack of interagency planning and communication, internal agency differences in resource management objectives, limitations on funding availability, and estimating the behavior of long-term prescribed fires, particularly those occurring in wilderness areas. Prescribed fire remains an important land management tool. The activity, however, of prescribed fire programs will depend on the solution of many issues that constrain its application. The ideas of the various speakers and the discussion that is stimulated should provide much food for thought.

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Citation

Nichols, Tom  1995.  Fire in Wildland ecosystems—opening comments.   In: Weise, David R.; Martin, Robert E., technical coordinators. The Biswell symposium: fire issues and solutions in urban interface and wildland ecosystems; February 15-17, 1994; Walnut Creek, California. Gen. Tech. Rep. PSW-GTR-158. Albany, CA: Pacific Southwest Research Station, Forest Service, U.S. Department of Agriculture; p. 49-50.