For Immediate Release
Tuesday, August 08, 2006
Media Tip Sheet: Wildfire Experts at Colorado State University Available to Discuss Current Issues, Topics
Note to Editors: As Colorado and the nation's wildfire season continues, Colorado State is providing the following list of wildfire experts who can address a variety of information about wildfires and forestry. The tip sheet is intended to provide resources to the media but not contact information for the public.
FORT COLLINS - Wildfire risk reduction and forest restoration
Dan Binkley, director of the Colorado Forest Restoration Institute, is available to talk about ways to reduce risks of catastrophic wildfires and improve the health of Colorado's forests. The Colorado Forest Restoration Institute was established by Congress and the governor or Colorado to actively restore forest heath and reduce the risk of severe wildfires.
To speak with Binkley, contact Kimberly Sorensen at (970) 491-0757 or Kimberly.Sorensen@colostate.edu.
Robert Sturtevant, extension forestry specialist with Colorado State's Department of Forest, Rangeland, and Watershed Stewardship and associate director of Colorado State's Forest Restoration Institute, can discuss wildfire mitigation around homes and subdivisions, the use of fire for restoring forests, the role of wildfire in creating existing forests and how the suppression of fires has changed the natural cycles of the forest. He can also talk about the role insects are playing in changing forests in the absence of wildfire.
To speak with Sturtevant, contact Kimberly Sorensen at (970) 491-0757 or Kimberly.Sorensen@colostate.edu.
Public policy and community planning
Tony Cheng, associate professor of forestry and natural resource policy, can speak on community wildfire protection planning, public participation in forest management, planning sustainable wildfire mitigation and forest restoration plans.
To speak with Cheng, contact Kimberly Sorensen at (970) 491-0757 or Kimberly.Sorensen@colostate.edu.
Wildfire economics
Douglas Rideout, a wildfire economist and director of the Fire Economics and Management Laboratory, can discuss the economics and management of wild and prescribed fires, the wildland urban interface, strategic analysis and budgeting of fire programs, fuel management and initial attack systems. The laboratory has played a central role in the construction and implementation of the new Fire Program Analysis system that is being implemented nationwide to support fire program planning.
To speak with Rideout, contact Kimberly Sorensen at (970) 491-0757 or Kimberly.Sorensen@colostate.edu.
Fire behavior and effects
Monique Rocca, professor of wildland fire management, is available to talk about the role of wildfire in natural ecosystems, fire behavior, how human activities have altered patterns of fires and how management activities such as fire suppression, prescribed fire and forest thinning can affect species distributions and biodiversity. She can also discuss the spatial aspects of fire and fire's effects, including the scales, causes and ecological consequences of variability in fire intensity.
To speak with Rocca, contact Kimberly Sorensen at (970) 491-0757 or Kimberly.Sorensen@colostate.edu.
Bill Romme, fire ecology professor and associate director for research of the Colorado Forest Restoration Institute, can discuss fire management policies, the effects of fires on organisms, populations, communities and ecosystems as well as the ecological role of fire in various major vegetation types of North America. He can also talk about the effects of fires in Yellowstone National Park on nitrogen and carbon cycling and re-growth of lodgepole pine forests.
To speak with Romme, contact Kimberly Sorensen at (970) 491-0757 or Kimberly.Sorensen@colostate.edu.
Fuel management
Frederick "Skip" Smith, head of the Colorado State forestry major and forest management concentration, is available to discuss how proper fuel management is a key factor in reducing fire risk.
To speak with Smith, contact Kimberly Sorensen at (970) 491-0757 or Kimberly.Sorensen@colostate.edu.
Robin Reich, a forestry and natural resources professor, can discuss management of fuel loadings that reduce fire risk. He is involved in modeling forest fuel loadings in the Black Hills, Lincoln, Medicine Bow and the Roosevelt National Forests.
To speak with Reich, contact Kimberly Sorensen at (970) 491-0757 or Kimberly.Sorensen@colostate.edu.
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