Humans have long maintained a complex and dynamic relationship with wildland fire. While native North Americans utilized fire for hundreds of years to promote growth of certain plants, facilitate hunting, and clear travel corridors (Williams 1994), during most of the 20th century fire on U.S. public lands was viewed as dangerous and destructive. For decades, Federal agencies have worked to suppress and minimize wildland fire on public lands, including wilderness and other similarly protected areas (Parsons and Landres 1998). To protect scenery and natural features, for example, early National...

The passage of the Recreation Fee Demonstration Program legislation in 1996 marked the beginning of recreation fee programs targeted for users of Federally designated wilderness in the United States. This legislation has different implications for wilderness management than for other recreation programs because wilderness as a recreation resource has unique management policies and directives that may affect whether and how to implement recreation user fees. Wilderness managers implementing fee programs are faced with a variety of decisions including whether to use fees, how to collect fees,...

The method of paired comparisons is used to measure individuals' preference orderings of items presented to them as discrete binary choices. This paper reviews the theory and application of the paired comparison method, describes a new computer program available for eliciting the choices, and presents an analysis of methods for scaling paired choice data to estimate an interval scale measure of preference. A new procedure for isolating an individual's inconsistent choices is described. Using data from five empirical studies, the reliability of respondents' paired choices is assessed using...

We conducted a literature review of the effects of climate on the distribution and growth of quaking aspen (Populus tremuloides Michx.) in the Western United States. Based on our review, we summarize models of historical climate determinants of contemporary aspen distribution. Most quantitative climate-based models linked aspen presence and growth to moisture availability and solar radiation. We describe research results pertaining to global climate change effects on aspen distribution and vigor. In addition, we present potential interactive effects related to climate change and natural...

The purpose of this Change Management and Implementation Guide is to provide the US Forest Service's Fire and Aviation Management with pertinent information to help build a strategy when faced with an operational change. This includes change to the agency, a particular program or any other change that has potential to significantly impact personnel or operations whether originating from inside or outside the agency. As directed from the Chief's Safety Policy, "The prevention of accidents can only occur if we commit to safe work practices, continually assess our changing environment, refuse to...

The Wilderness Visitor Experience Workshop was held at the Lubrecht Experimental Forest near Missoula, MT, April 4-7, 2011. The science and management of wilderness visitors is now more than half a century old. Much has been learned over this period. And yet it seems that enthusiasm for recreation research generally and for wilderness visitor science specifically has been waning recently. With the 50th Anniversary of The Wilderness Act approaching in 2014, it seemed timely to celebrate and capture what has been learned over the past 50 years. We also wanted to revitalize this research...

Cultural resources refer to the physical evidence of human occupations that cultural resource specialists and archaeologists use to reconstruct the past. This includes the objects, location, and landscapes that play a significant role in the history or cultural traditions of a group of people. Cultural resources include artifacts of historical significance left by prehistoric aboriginal peoples. Archaeological constituents, the basic units of archaeological analysis, consist of artifacts and features. Artifacts include carved objects, pottery, and ceramics, flaked and ground stones, faunal...

This state-of-knowledge review about the effects of fire on flora and fuels can assist land managers in planning for ecosystem management and fire management, and in their efforts to inform others about the ecological role of fire. Chapter 1 presents an overview and a classification of fire regimes that is used throughout the report. Chapter 2 summarizes knowledge of fire effects on individual plants, including susceptibility to mortality of aerial crowns, stems, and roots; vegetative regeneration; seedling establishment from on-site and off-site seed sources; seasonal influences such as...

Fire is a natural disturbance that occurs in most terrestrial ecosystems. It is also a tool that has been used by humans to manage a wide range of natural ecosystems worldwide. As such, it can produce a spectrum of effects on soils, water, riparian biota, and wetland components of ecosystems. Fire scientists, land managers, and fire suppression personnel need to evaluate fire effects on these components, and balance the overall benefits and costs associated with the use of fire in ecosystem management. This publication has been written to provide up-to- date information on fire effects on...

Each decision to suppress fire reinforces a feedback cycle in which fuels continue to accumulate, risk escalates, and the tendency to suppress fires grows (Miller and others 2004). To make good decisions regarding fuels and fire, managers need to assess the benefits, risks, and consequences of fire and fire suppression. Without information on the benefits of fire, justifying wildland fire as a management strategy may be unpractical. The need for information is immediate, but existing decision-support tools focus primarily on the negative consequences of fire. The challenge, then, is to create...