The National Science Foundation (NSF) has awarded $2.3 million dollars to a project team led by ISER researcher Dr. Jennifer Schmidt to assess fuel treatments as a strategy to reduce wildfire risk in the boreal forest of Alaska and western Canada. Of the total amount, $856,000 will go to the University of Alaska. Eleven researchers from the University of Alaska Anchorage, Northern Arizona University (NAU), the University of Colorado (UC), Tanana Chiefs Conference (TCC), and the Wildfire Research Center (WiRē) will work on the four-year project, “Socio-ecological considerations for sustainAble Fuel treatments to Reduce wildfire Risk (SAFRR).”
Fire in a boreal forest in Alaska taken by Scott Rupp, via USGS.
“This project will help us understand more about the effectiveness and social acceptance of fuel treatments like prescribed burns and thinning of vegetation in reducing wildfire risk,” Schmidt said. “Since the 1990s there’s been a dramatic increase in the amount of boreal forest burned each year in Alaska and western Canada. This area has experienced some of the largest and most costly wildfire events in the last decade.”
Fuel treatments are among the main tools that land management agencies, landowners, and communities use to reduce risk to residents and infrastructure. However, effective fuel treatments require significant planning, implementation costs, and maintenance. They can also be controversial: they may face resistance and affect attitudes and behaviors of nearby residents.
SAFRR project team members will work with public land and wildfire practitioners; Indigenous organizations; and communities on the Kenai Peninsula, in Interior Alaska, and Anchorage, and Whitehorse, Yukon Territory, to co-produce an integrated assessment of fuel treatments that will include:
- preferred strategies, barriers to implementation, and key policies regarding fuel treatments
- insights into how vegetation responds to different treatments, installation and maintenance costs
short-term and long-term ecological effects of fuel treatments and their influence on wildfire behavior; - how likely fuel treatments are to be acceptable to residents
- how alternative fuel treatment designs can achieve social, ecological, and public safety goals
Project team members
Dr. Jennifer Schmidt (Primary Investigator (PI) for UAA, overall), assistant professor of natural resource management and policy at the Institute for Social and Economic Research, University of Alaska Anchorage
Dr. Michelle Mack (PI for NAU), regents’ professor of ecosystem ecology in the Center for Ecosystem Science and Society and the Department of Biological Sciences at Northern Arizona University.
Dr. Hannah Brenkert-Smith (PI for UC), research associate professor at University of Colorado’s Institute of Behavioral Science. WiRē team member.
Will Putman (PI for TCC), forester with the Tanana Chiefs Conference with extensive experience in forest management in Alaska and use of fuel treatments around rural Alaska communities.
Dr. Matthew Berman (Co-PI), professor of economics at the Institute for Social and Economic Research, University of Alaska Anchorage
Dr. Xanthe Walker (Co-PI), assistant research professor in the Center for Ecosystem Science and Society and the Department of Biological Sciences at Northern Arizona University.
Dr. Joseph Little (Co-PI), assistant professor of economics in the W.A. Franke College of Business at Northern Arizona University and an affiliate researcher with the International Arctic Research Center.
Alison York (Senior Personnel), Alaska Fire Science Consortium (AFSC) coordinator and is an expert in Alaska fire ecology, tundra fire, fire management, and science communication.
Dr. Patricia Champ (Collaborator), economist at the Human Dimensions Program at the U.S. Forest Service’s Rocky Mountain Research Station in Fort Collins. WiRē team member.
Chris Barth (Collaborator), fire mitigation specialist with the Bureau of Land Management. WiRē team member.
Chris Moore (Collaborator), fire analyst with the Bureau of Land Management.
Related stories on wildfire risk reduction:
Online map provides overview of fire breaks around Alaska – November 2020
McKinley Fire: Rebuilding and Lessons Learned – September 2020
