RNR 355, Introduction to Wildland Fire

Dr Don Falk, School of Natural Resources

Class Schedule, Fall 2011

DATE	TOPIC	LECTURER	READING
Monday, 20 August	Welcome and introductions. Introduction to the course. Review of the syllabus: the six major themes. Why study wildfire? Fire as an Earth system process.	Falk
Wednesday, 22 August	Unit 1. Fire as a physical process. 1.1 Fundamentals of combustion. The combustion triangle. Combustion Equation Aerobic respiration and combustion	Falk	Van Wagtendonk 2006 (“VW”): 38-40 Pyne et al. (“PAL”) 1996: 3-11
Friday, 24 August	1.2 Fire, ecosystem energy and the carbon cycle.	Falk	Hsu et al. 2010, pp. 114-121
Monday, 27 August	1.3 Stages of combustion and basic modes of energy transfer. Exercise 1 distributed NPR Special Series	Falk	PAL 1996 14-18, 20-23 Heat and Thermal Energy
Wednesday, 29 August	1.4 Understanding Ignition, lightning types and frequency. Contribution of humans to starting fires.	Falk	PAL 18-19
Friday, 31 August	1.5 Where there’s fire, there’s smoke Incomplete Combustion Exercise 1 distributed	Falk	Ward and Hardy 1991:117-125 Smoke Web (US Forest Service)
Monday, 3 September (Labor Day)	NO CLASS
Wednesday, 5 September	Wrap-up Unit 1. Quiz, Unit 1.	Falk
Friday, 7 September	Unit 2. Fire behavior. 2.1 The fire behavior triangle. How fires spread. Parts of a fire. Measuring fire behavior and intensity Exercise 1 due	Falk
Monday, 10 September	2.2 Fuels. Properties and characteristics of fuels. How fuels are measured. Fuel models.	Falk	VW 40-43 PAL 90-102 Anderson 1982: 1-16
Wednesday, 12 September	2.3 Fuel Models	Falk	PAL 102-106 Scott and Burgan 2005
Friday, 14 September	2.4 Fire Weather.	Falk	VW 43-46 PAL 106-117 FS Digest 2008 story Lentile et al. 2006
Monday, 17 September	2.5 Influences of topography on fire behavior. Exercise 2 Exercise 2 CompareModels.xlsx (data)	Falk	VW 46-53
Wednesday, 19 September	Wrap-up Unit 2. Quiz, Unit 2	Falk
Friday, 21 September	Unit 3. Fire as an ecological process. 3.1 First and second order fire effects. Measures of fire severity. Exercise 2 due	Falk	Zwolinski 1996
Monday, 24 September	3.2 Fire effects on watersheds and hydrologic processes.	Dr Phil Guertin (SNRE)	Neary et al. 2005: 107-119
Wednesday, 26 September	3.3 Fire effects on soils. Exercise 3 distributed (fire ecology)	Dr. Karletta Chief (SWES)	Neary et al. 2005: 21-27, 29-37 Pierson et al. 2002 Supplemental: Niery et al. 1-17,37-40
Friday, 28 September	3.4 Fire effects on vegetation	Falk	Brown & Smith 2000: 9-34
Monday, 1 October	3.5 Fire and the Global Carbon Cycle	Tyson Swetnam	Hurteau Brief Supplemental: North et al. 2009 North and Hurteau 2011
Wednesday, 3 October	3.6 Fire effects on birds and their habitat	Jherime Kellerman (Ecology & Evolutionary Biology)	Smucker et al. 2005 Supplemental Reading: Nappi et al. 2010
Friday, 5 October	3.7 Fire and forest Insects	Dr Ann Lynch (US Forest Service)	Lynch et al. 2006 Bigler et al. 2005 Jenkins et al 2008
Monday, 8 October	3.8 Effects of fire on wildlife and fish populations and habitat. Exercise 3 due.	John Koprowski (SNRE)	Koprowski et al. 2006 Doumas and Koprowski 2012 Fontaine and Kennedy 2012 Fisher and Wilkinson 2005
Wednesday, 10 October	Wrap-up Unit 3. Unit 3 Quiz.	Falk
Friday, 12 October	Introduction to student “big fires” case study project. Fire research centers and fire resources online. Unit 4. Fire regimes of the world. 4.1 Fire Regimes	Falk and Swetnam
Monday, 15 October	4.2 Fire in grasslands and prairies.	Dr Jeff Fehmi (SNRE)	Anderson 2006 Paysen et al. 2000 (Brown and Smith 121-136)
Wednesday, 17 October	4.3 Fire in subalpine and boreal forests and tundra.	Dr. Thomas Swetnam (LTRR)	TBA
Friday, 19 October	4.4 Surface and mixed-severity fire regimes in temperate conifer forests	Christopher ‘Kit’ O’Connor	Falk et al. 2011
Monday, 22 October	4.5 Fire in savannas and woodlands.	Dr. Steve Archer (SNRE)	Paysen et al. 2000 (Brown and Smith 137-159) Fulendorf et al. 2011
Wednesday, 24 October	4.6 Fire in deserts and tropical forests	Falk	Cochrane 2003 McLaughlin and Bowers 1982
Friday, 26 October	Wrap-up Unit 4 Quiz, Unit 4
Monday, 29 October	Unit 5. Managing wildland fire. 5.1 Introduction to fire management Main options for fire management: fire suppression, prescribed fire, wildland fire use.	Falk	Western Governors’ Association, “Cohesive Wildland Fire Strategy” NPR segment (Christopher Joyce)
Wednesday, 31 October	5.2 Measuring and mapping fuels and fire effects with remote sensing tools. Soil and vegetation burn severity from space. Using LANDSAT, MTBS, and other sources of fire severity data.	Dr Miguel Villareal, USGS	Lentile et al. 2006 Key 2006
Friday, 2 November	5.3 Managing fire in the Wildland-Urban Interface. Real-world fire management in southern Arizona.	Kristi Lund	Coronado Fire Management Plan Falk, Fire on the Landscape
Monday, 5 November	5.4 Fire in Australia Exercise 4 distributed.	Dr. Tina Bell
Wednesday, 7 November	5.5 Fire suppression. Organization of fire response teams. Fire crew protective gear.	Gene Beaudoin, State of Arizona	Cohen Hardy and Hardy
Friday, 9 November	5.6 Prescribed fire and fuel reduction treatments.	Falk	Agee and Skinner 2005 Graham et al. 2004
Monday, 12 November	No Class (Veteran’s day)
Wednesday, 14 November	Quiz, Unit 5
Friday, 16 November	The 1947 Mann Gulch incident (in-class video). Exercise 4 distributed.	Falk	MacLean, Young Men and Fire (section) Taylor 2000, Jumping Fire Ch. 3
Monday, 19 November	Unit 6. Fire in a changing world. 6.1 Community responses to landscape fire: FireWise.	Cori Dolan (UA, SNRE and FireScape Project)	Cohen 2008 McCaffrey 2004 McCaffrey 2008 FireWise website: http://cals.arizona.edu/firewise/
Wednesday, 21 November	6.2 Effects of climate variability and climate change on fire regimes	Falk	Fulé 2008 Bowman, D. M. J. S., et al. 2009. Fire in the Earth system. Science 324:481–484. Westerling, A. L., H. G. Hidalgo, D. R. Cayan, and T. W. Swetnam. 2006. Warming and earlier spring increase western US forest wildfire activity. Science 313:940–943.
Friday, 23 November	NO CLASS (Thanksgiving recess)	Falk
Monday, 26 November	6.3 Evolution of US national fire policy.	Travis Dotson, Wildland Fire Lessons Learned Center	Doane et al. 2006 Jensen and McPherson 2008, Living with Fire, pp. 1-6, 61-74, 103-135, 155-168
Wednesday, 28 November	Quiz, Unit 6		-
Friday, 30 November	Student case study presentations
Monday, 3 December	Student case study presentations (continued). Exercise 4 (Mann Gulch) due.
Wednesday, 5 December	Student case study presentations (continued).
FINAL EXAM MONDAY December 10^th in BSE 225 10:30AM till 12:30PM