Mitigating fire risk to late-successional forest reserves on the east slope of the Washington Cascade Range, USA

A fire-risk model was developed using a stand-structure approach for the forests of the eastern slopes of the Washington Cascade Range, USA. The model was used to evaluate effects of seven landscape-scale silvicultural regimes on fire risk at two spatial scales: (1) the risk to the entire landscape; and (2) the risk to three reserve stands with stand structures associated with high conservation priorities (layered canopy, large trees, multiple species). A 1000 ha landscape was projected five decades for each management regime using an individual tree, distance-independent growth model. Results suggest that a variety of silvicultural approaches will reduce landscape fire risk; however, reserve stand fire risk is minimally decreased by thinning treatments to neighboring stands. Intensive fuel reduction through prescribed burning and selection of reserve stands in favorable topographic positions provide substantial fire risk reductions.