Fire management impacts on carbon storage in Southwest ponderosa pine forests

Celine T. Colbert, Katherine L. Martin, and Matthew D. Hurteau The Department of Ecosystem Science and Management, Pennsylvania State University, University Park, PA
BACKGROUND Forest carbon storage can offset greenhouse gas emissions; however, many forests evolved with frequent fire, which emits carbon.1 Fire suppression has increased forest density and fuel loads in historically open ponderosa pine forests. This increases the likelihood of a standreplacing wildfire, which can convert forests from carbon sinks to sources for decades. Wildfire risk reduction treatments including prescribed fire and thinning can reduce high-severity fire risk, but they also remove carbon from the forest. The carbon trade-offs between treatments and wildfire emissions have been a focus of much recent research and have important climate change mitigation implications; especially given the potential for increasing wildfire frequency and drought-induced mortality with climate change. OBJECTIVE We examined the carbon trade-offs of management techniques implemented to mitigate wildfire severity including thinning, burning, and combining thinning and burning for ponderosa pine forest of Camp Navajo, Arizona (Fig. 1). RESULTS More aggressive treatments reduce the risk of crown fire Over 100 years the carbon cost of reduced fire risk is 56 Mg C ha-1 A larger ratio of live carbon to standing dead occurs when prescribed burning is used The smallest amount of carbon is released by wildfire when thinning and burning are combined

Figure 3. Live and dead tree carbon stocks and wildfire emissions by treatment for three wildfire simulations

DISCUSSION Severe wildfires are increasing due to climate change2, and significant amount of fire-suppressed ponderosa pine forests exist throughout the Western United States3, making fire management increasingly important. While more intense treatments such as the thin and burn remove and store less carbon over time, they also result in the greatest wildfire risk reduction. This type of management can reduce wildfire intensity and emissions2, providing more resilient carbon stocks as well as other ecosystem services such as wildlife habitat for species such as the federally threatened Mexican spotted owl (Strix occidentalis lucida). The trade-off between carbon stock size and resiliency must be considered and evaluated to determine the appropriate management approach.
Figure 1. Camp Navajo ponderosa pine.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS METHODS We used the Forest Vegetation Simulator (FVS), a forest growth-andyield model developed by the USDA Forest Service. We modeled forest growth from 2011-2111 using inventory information collected from ponderosa pine forests at Camp Navajo, Arizona. We simulated four treatments (Table 1) and periodic wildfire to examine the effects of treatment and wildfire on forest carbon dynamics. We also tracked torching and crowning indices using as a metric of stand-replacing wildfire risk.
Table 1: Treatment descriptions.

Funding was provided by the US Department of Defense Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program (SERDP). We thank the field crew who collected the data.
REFERENCES 1Hurteau, M.D., G.W. Koch and B.A. Hungate. 2008. Carbon protection and fire risk reduction: toward a full accounting of forest carbon offsets. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 6: 493-498. 2Westerling, A.L., H.G. Hidalgo, D.R. Cayan, T.W. Swetnam. 2006. Warming and earlier spring increase western U.S. forest wildfire activity. Science 313: 940-43. 3Ful, P.Z., A.E. Waltz, W.W. Covington. 2001. Measuring forest restoration effectiveness in reducing hazardous fuels. Journal of Forestry 99: 24-28.
Figure 2. Aboveground carbon stocks and crowning and torching indices across forest management treatments.

Treatment Control Burn-only Thin-only Thin/Burn

Description No treatment Prescribed fire every 10 years Thin from below to 16m2 ha-1 Combination of Thin-only and Burn-only