College of Forestry

Roadless national forests in the American West burn more often and at a slightly higher severity than national forests with roads, but the end result for the roadless forests is greater fire resilience, Oregon State University researchers say.

Oregon State University researchers say “topographic templates” can help forest conservation managers develop strategies for protecting and restoring the most fire-resistant parts of vulnerable forests across a range of ecosystems.

The Oregon State University Extension Service Fire Program is collaborating with state and community partners to launch a free webinar series to help prepare Oregonians for the 2021 wildfire season and beyond.

Oregon wildfires threatened multiple cities in summer 2020, destroyed more than 4,000 homes, filled the air with smoke for days and burned more than 1 million acres, the second highest one-year total in state history.

Scientists from Oregon State University are teaming up with the Karuk Tribe and other partners to develop strategies for managing future wildfires in northern California’s Klamath Mountains and restoring the role of beneficial fire in the region.

New digital tools developed by Oregon State University will enable land managers to better adapt to the new reality of large wildfires through analytics that guide planning and suppression across jurisdictional boundaries that fires typically don’t adhere to.

A groundbreaking two-year study in southern Oregon found greater abundance and diversity of wild bees in areas that experienced moderate and severe forest fires compared to areas with low-severity fires.

Go Big or Go Home?, a project of the Institute for Working Landscapes in the Oregon Forest Research Laboratory and the U.S. Forest Service Pacific Northwest Research Station, explored the effects of different restoration strategies on forest conditions and fire behavior, with a focus on the forested landscape of central Oregon. 

Tree rings tell the story of what’s happening physiologically as fire suppression makes forests more dense and less tolerant of drought, pests and wildfires, new research shows.

Large wildfires cause increases in stream flow that can last for years or even decades, according to a new analysis of 30 years of data from across the continental United States.