The national Fire and Fire Surrogate study: Effects of fuel treatments in the western and eastern US after 20 years

The national Fire and Fire Surrogate (FFS) study was initiated more than two decades ago with the goal of evaluating the ecological impacts of mechanical treatments and prescribed fire in different ecosystems across the United States. Since then, 4 of the original 12 sites remain active in managing and monitoring the original FFS study which provides a unique opportunity to look at the long-term effects of these treatments in different regions. These sites include California (Blodgett Forest Research Station), Montana (Lubrecht Experimental Forest), North Carolina (Green River Game Land) and Ohio (Ohio Hills). Although regions differed in ecosystem type (e.g., conifer- vs. hardwood-dominated), the overall goals of the FFS study were to promote desirable, fire-adapted species, reduce fire hazard, and improve understory diversity. Our study uses multivariate techniques to compare how these desired outcomes were maintained over the last 20 years and discusses whether we would modify the or..., Overstory measurements
All mature trees within plots at each site were tagged and recorded for status (i.e., alive, dead), species, and diameter at breast height (DBH; at height of 1.37 m). Although tree regeneration (i.e., seedlings and saplings) is typically considered an understory component, we included it in the overstory analysis to demonstrate the potential for future overstory recruitment of preferred or non-preferred tree species as well as fire hazard over time. In California, a minimum DBH of 15 cm was used to inventory mature trees within the entire plot (0.04 ha), while live seedlings (<DBH in height) and saplings (≥DBH in height and <15 cm DBH) were tallied by species in either a subplot (0.004 ha) or the entire plot depending on size. Montana, Ohio, and North Carolina had a minimum DBH of 10 cm to inventory mature trees. North Carolina measured mature trees in half of the 0.10- ha subplots while Montana and Ohio measured mature trees in all 0.10 ha plots. At these s..., , # The national Fire and Fire Surrogate study: Effects of fuel treatments in the western and eastern US after 20 years

[https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.5tb2rbpdp](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.5tb2rbpdp)

## Description of the data and file structure

*Summary*

This README file is associated with the Ecological Applications article entitled \"**The national Fire and Fire Surrogate study: Effects of fuel treatments in the western and eastern US after 20 years**\" (EAP23-0533) and was prepared by Alexis A. Bernal on 12/16/2024. This README file describes the data used to 1) test whether various fire and fire surrogate treatments differed over time using multi-response permutation procedure (MRPP) and 2) visually compare whether desired outcomes in forest structure/composition differentiated treatments 20 years after the initial treatments were implemented using canonical discriminant analysis (CDA). For site-specific applications of treatments including the timing of treatments, please refer...