13 FOCUS - SPRING 2024 affectionally known, also celebrated a successful midterm review by the National Science Foundation. Throughout the challenges and celebrations, the H.J. Andrews community continues to make discoveries about the forest and engage with forest managers, teachers, students of all levels, artists, writers, musicians and many other groups. Learn more about the Lookout Fire and the H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest and Long-term Ecological Research program at beav.es/qEi. Bridging gaps between forestry and engineering to better understand community resilience to wildfire Wildfire researchers from Oregon State University, including College of Forestry Assistant Professor Chris Dunn, have received $750,000 for multiple projects to advance the science of wildfire risk and resilience. The strategies include embedding a doctoral student in Ashland, Oregon, the site of the largest primarily urban blaze in Oregon history that occurred in 2020; planning a global center for transdisciplinary wildfire research on community resilience; and creating a wildfire risk and resilience graduate program jointly advised by faculty in OSU’s colleges of engineering and forestry. Read more at bws/qEw. Forest modeling shows which harvest rotations lead to maximum carbon sequestration Forest modeling completed on the McDonald-Dunn Research Forest by College of Forestry graduate student Catherine Carlisle and professors Temesgen Hailemariam and Stephen Fitzgerald, shows that a site’s productivity — an indicator of how fast trees grow and how much biomass they accumulate — is the main factor that determines which time period between timber harvests allows for maximum above-ground carbon sequestration. Over a 240year projection timeframe, scientists found that for highly productive stands, 60-year rotations with low-intensity thinning at 40 years led to the greatest carbon storage (in the standing trees plus what was removed from the thinning). For stands on less productive sites, they found carbon storage was maximized by rotation periods of 80 years or 120 years. To read more, visit beav.es/qEU. Update from the H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest On August 5, 2023, a lightning strike ignited a wildfire within the H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest and Long-term Ecological Research site in Oregon’s Cascade mountains, ultimately burning across 70% of the forest. The fire, dubbed the Lookout Fire because the ignition point was on Lookout Mountain, burned 25,000 acres, incinerating long-term, decades-old research plots and altering study sites. 2023 also marked 75 years of ecological data collection, and 42 years of Long-term Ecological Research (LTER) inquiry. The Andrews, as it’s The Lookout Fire burning in the H.J. Andrews Experimental Forest in September 2023. Photo: Mark Schulze.
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