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>> Pacific Southwest Research Station is a branch
of the Forest Service Research Organization, and we're part
of the USDA Forest Service.
And we conduct research related to forests in California
and Hawaii, and the Pacific Islands.
The mission of the Pacific Southwest Research Station is
to conduct research to allow us to better the management
of the public lands, primarily the forests,
and conduct all aspects of research, from wildlife
to water, to air to fire, to trees, you name it.
We cover all aspects of that research.
>> We play a vital role in research, because we focus
on long-term research, looking at how forests have changed
over a long period of time.
And we also have access to areas like this,
an experimental forest where research has been ongoing
for a very long period of time.
>> One of the critical aspects of the success that we have
in our fire program is that many
of our scientists have a unique ability of working hand in hand
with many of our land managers, particularly
from our National Forest System,
and particularly from the region here.
>> We have close ties to the land management agency,
of which we're part, and we also have the detached ability,
much like our university cooperators do,
to conduct research objectively, and to address problems
which are of interest both immediately and in the future,
related to land management of this country.
>> The Stanislaus Tuolumne experimental forest is one
of our nation's areas for doing research
on national forest lands.
>> The changes I've seen in forests
over the last 20 years is primarily where they're starting
to see the effects of actually many decades
of fire suppression, which has brought
about increasingly dense forests over the last 100 years
from the way that they used to be.
>> I think that vigor is down,
and trees are less resilient, essentially.
And that combined with the fact that we have overstocking
and higher service fuel loads, we have the potential
for uncharacteristic wildfires in these forests.
>> We know today that fire behaves very differently,
that the dense forests that we have today allow the fire
to increase in intensity.
There's a lot more fuel on the ground than there was
when the fires were coming through frequently,
and the fuel allows the fires to build up intensity,
which then pushes them up into the understories,
the small trees in the underneath,
and then up into the crown.
>> We know that fire is a very integral part of these systems,
and we've suppressed it for many years,
and so we have high intensity fires
when they occur these days.
>> Fire can be a friend and a foe.
Really, fire is just a disturbance which occurs --
naturally occurs in vegetation.
>> Fire is vital for many ecological processes
in these forests.
>> Fire used to burn through the understory of forests,
and take out a lot of the degenerating trees.
It hasn't been able to do
that since we've started doing real effective fire suppression.
As a result of that, when fires get started in those forests,
instead of burning on the ground and just burning
up the little trees and the bushes,
and the accumulated pine needles and things, instead,
the fire can climb up through the regenerating vegetation
into the crown, and become the sort of holocaust fires
that you see on the evening news.
Densification of the forests due to this increase in number
of trees, because we've been putting out fires
so effectively has really caused an increase in fire.
Seems like a contradiction, but that's what's been happening.
>> Well what I'd really like the public
to know is how important these things that we're doing are,
especially, you know, thinning of these forests
that are completely overstocked
from what they historically were,
and also again reintroducing fire, that not all fire's bad.
You know, we -- wildfire that's uncontrolled can certainly be
devastating to communities, but I think it's really important
for people to understand that fire is an important part
of the ecosystem, it was a very regular part
of the system historically, and that for us
to reintroduce it is really an important part
of ecological restoration of these forests today.
>> I think that some folks think that we can put everything
out that happens, or that we should be able to,
and in fact we cannot eliminate fire from these forests.
So we have to learn to live with it, and live with it more
or less on our terms if we can, rather than the extreme terms
that nature sort of dictates.
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>> The thing that I'm proudest of in terms
of my personal research has been the team that I work with,
that is really focused on fire behavior,
and trying to understand how fire spreads in live fuels.
>> I'm very excited about the work we're doing here
on the Stanislaus Tuolumne Experimental Forest,
because we have developed a very strong relationship
with the National Forest System here.
And as a result, our work
that we're doing is very easily transferred to management,
where they can use it.
And we're already seeing that work being used today.
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