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Groups of trees with interlocking crowns provide important habitat for certain wildlife, including different squirrel and bird species. Studies show that historically, trees often grew together in clumps and groups. Restoration treatments seek to emulate these structural forest conditions, which are important to wildlife species that require a more dense forest structure. Some wildlife, like antelope, prefer openings and meadows scattered throughout the forest.
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To evaluate current and historical forest conditions, foresters and researchers use a variety of methods, like measuring tree diameter. By studying historical and current forest conditions throughout the Southwest, scientists have gathered a large amount of data used to describe forest changes that have occurred over 150 years of fire suppression. This information helps guide management actions that address the extraordinary challenges in the face of climate change and increased frequency of uncharacteristically large, high-severity fires.
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Publicly owned forests provide many ecosystem services, such as wildlife habitat and biological diversity, watershed function and flood control, aesthetics, recreation, and economic opportunities. Managers take a variety of public interests into consideration and work to balance these interests. Thoughtful consideration of impacts from tree thinning and prescribed fire are incorporated into planning forest treatments.
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Living in the beautiful forests of northern Arizona means living in a fire-adapted ecosystem, one where prescribed fire is used as a regular maintenance tool. Prescribed fire kills off some of the smaller trees and saplings, which could potentially carry fire up to the crowns of adjacent, larger trees. While smoke from wildfires can impact communities, fire managers plan prescribed fires to minimize these smoke impacts. In the long-run, prescribed fire can help reduce the likelihood that severe wildfires will occur, which typically have heavier and longer smoke events.
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Orange-colored bark and large bark plates are signs that a tree may be very old (more than 150 years). A critically important goal of forest restoration is to make sure that old-growth trees are not cut down. Fortunately, the orange bark color of old ponderosa pine trees helps to identify trees in need of conservation.
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Restored forests provide sustainable recreation opportunities. Forests that experience high-severity fire lose value in many different ways, including recreational value. Since there is little value in the small-diameter wood extracted from restoration thinning operations, land managers have begun to recognize that the value of a treated forest can be greater than the wood extracted. Treated forests provide numerous ecosystem services and reduce the risk of high-severity wildfires and post-fire flooding.
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Current-day forests are more than 10 times as dense as historical forests, and are subject to damage by wildfire, drought, insect, and disease. While the risk of these disturbances increase with climate change, restoration efforts can lead to healthier and more resilient forests. Thinning operations remove smaller trees that grew in the absence of fires, which were historically caused by lightning strikes. In addition to reducing the risk of trees dying in a high-severity fire event, this allows remaining trees to grow larger and more fire-resistant. Similarly, homeowners can make their property Firewise by reducing fuels around their homes.
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Openings are often productive areas for biodiversity. They host a number of different grass and wildflower species that provide food and habitat for numerous insect, bird, and mammal species. Studies have shown that restored forests are more diverse than current-day dense forests, primarily because there are more openings that allow sunlight to reach the forest floor, which support diverse plant communities.
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Studies of ponderosa pine fire scars show that historically these forests burned every 2–20 years. In the late 1800s, Euro-American settlement disrupted these low-intensity fires through heavy livestock grazing, select logging, and subsequent fire suppression. Fire suppression is largely responsible for the explosion of tree populations that now fuel large, high-severity fires. Forest restoration efforts aim to reduce the risk of catastrophic wildfires and to maintain fire-adapted forest ecosystems by returning frequent, low-intensity fires to the landscape.
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Standing dead trees (called “snags”) and logs lying on the forest floor provide important habitat and food for wildlife. Restoration treatments strive to keep snags and logs scattered throughout the forest for wildlife.
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The grassy understory fuels of historical forests were critical for carrying low-intensity fires across the open forest floor, as opposed to fire being carried into the crowns of dense, overcrowded trees. These ground fires, also referred to as surface fires, would burn dead woody debris on the forest floor, kill off crowded saplings and small trees, and add nutrients to the soil that revive and maintain the native grass understory. Without grassy fuels to carry low-intensity surface fire, a restored forest could return to its previously dense condition.
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Tall, decayed stumps are signs of early logging that occurred during the late 1800s or early 1900s. Fresh, short stumps are signs of recent thinning projects. Historic logging operations used large handheld cross-cut saws that left tall stumps behind. These tall, old stumps are used by scientists to study what forests looked like prior to the disruptive impact of European settlement. Next time you walk around the forests of northern Arizona, look for tall pre-settlement stumps and imagine what the forest used to look like.
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