College of Forestry News

Mechanical thinning alone can calm the intensity of future wildfires for many years, and prescribed burns lengthen thinning’s effectiveness, according to Oregon State University research involving a seasonally dry ponderosa pine forest in northeastern Oregon.

Beavers are often translocated to restore populations in areas, reduce their conflicts with humans and to take advantage of their ability to improve ecosystems.

In a paper published this week in Ecological Applications, Andrew Merschel, James Johnston and Meg Krawchuk of the OSU College of Forestry also join other researchers in acknowledging the role of Indigenous fire stewardship in past and present landscapes and the value of restoring that stewardshi

A group of scientists and forest managers at OSU and the US Forest Service are asking community members who experienced the June 2021 Pacific Northwest heat wave event to participate in foliage scorch research.

Authors led by OSU’s William Ripple and Christopher Wolf, in a paper published July 27 in BioScience, are calling for a phase-out of fossil fuels in response to the climate crisis.

Roadless national forests in the American West burn more often and at a slightly higher severity than national forests without roads, but the end result for the roadless forests is greater fire resilience, Oregon State University researchers say.

Oregon State University researchers have some good news for the well-meaning masses who place bird feeders in their yards: The small songbirds who visit the feeders seem unlikely to develop an unhealthy reliance on them.

Human-caused wildfire ignitions in Central Oregon are expected to remain steady over the next four decades and lightning-caused ignitions are expected to decline, but the average size of a blaze from either cause is expected to rise, Oregon State University modeling suggests.

Based in OSU’s Division of Extension and Engagement, partners in the center are the College of Forestry and OSU-Cascades in Bend.

“Fire refugia” – areas that burn less frequently and/or less severely than the landscape around them – are crucial for supporting post-blaze ecosystem recovery, including the persistence of species under pressure.