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University of Montana Fire Center Conducts Research, Teaches Classes in Georgia

Research scientists with the National Center for Landscape Fire Analysis at The University of Montana http://firecenter.umt.edu/ are performing research on prescribed fire-related fuel consumption and thermal characterizations of fire in southeastern Georgia.

The center is a unit of UM’s College of Forestry and Conservation. As part of an ongoing partnership with The Nature Conservancy to conduct prescribed burning for ecological objectives in Georgia’s forests, Montana researchers will be joined by six UM undergraduate students in the University’s Prescribed Fire Practicum course.

Those students will plan and conduct prescribed burns on more than 1,000 acres in the longleaf pine ecosystem on Nature Conservancy holdings at Georgia’s Moody Forest Natural Area, Broxton Rocks and Oakbin Pond.

Longleaf pine forests depend on fire for seed germination and growth stimulation, and previous fire management policies have altered the natural growth cycle of the longleaf pine.

NCLFA research scientists LLoyd Queen and Casey Teske, along with UM graduate student Emily Garlough, will study the relationship between duff mound moisture content and post-fire duff consumption and will use a thermal infrared camera to capture data on radiant temperature during the burns. (Duff is the layer of decomposing organic materials below the litter layer of freshly fallen leaves, twigs and needles and immediately above the mineral soil.)

Concurrently, two research scientists from the U.S. Forest Service’s Rocky Mountain Research Station Fire Sciences Laboratory will collect data on tree stem heating and tree mortality as a result of fires. These research efforts will help scientists better understand the thermal characteristics of fire and to calculate thermal flux.

The Prescribed Fire Practicum, a course in UM’s forestry college, is taught by NCLFA’s Carl Seielstad. It gives undergraduate students with previous wildland firefighting experience the opportunity for technical training and theoretical learning in prescribed burning for ecological benefits.

During the two-week class, students rotate through fire management roles, plan and implement burns, and document and evaluate burn successes. The inaugural class was in January 2008, when six students, Seielstad and Queen managed six burns in the Moody Forest Natural Area and surrounding Georgia state lands.

Several ecological objectives were met through those burns: exposing the ground for longleaf pine seedlings to safely grow without scorching the crowns or burning away the duff at the base of the trees; burning to prepare a site for longleaf pine seedling replanting; and reintroducing fire into remnant longleaf pine stands. The 2009 class will conduct burns to meet many of the same ecological objectives.

Contact: Leana Schelvan, UM National Center for Landscape Fire Analysis, 406-243-6777, [email protected]

http://news.umt.edu/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=4902&Itemid=9

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