Science You Can Use

When land managers or planners need to understand how a segment of a forest road is impacting water quality, the Geomorphic Road Analysis and Inventory Package (GRAIP) is the go-to resource, with in-depth tools for intensive analysis. However, GRAIP's use is limited to road segments where detailed field data are available or when analyzing high-risk roads within priority watersheds. With the National Forest System having over 380,000 miles of roads, that's a lot of mileage that can't be easily analyzed with GRAIP. For situations where field data are unavailable or entire watersheds need analysis, GRAIP_Lite is a new go-to resource.

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The 2021 Tamarack Fire in California, started by lightning in a national forest wilderness area, burned nearly 70,000 acres and eventually destroyed 24 structures. Because properties were damaged, the public and media scrutinized the fire management response. This fire exemplifies not only the challenges of fire management in land and resource management, but also how shortcomings in the fire response reporting system can make way for misperceptions to dominate the public narrative.

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The first fire on Earth ignited 420 million years ago. Today, our planet remains the only one that we know of where oxygen, fuels, and ignition sources - including humans - come together to spark flames. As fire historian Stephen Pyne writes, "We are uniquely fire creatures on a unique fire planet."

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Lamprey are a lineage of boneless fish that is older than trees. Traditionally, lamprey species have been identified by morphology - that is, their visible features, such as teeth. However, this method can be unreliable because without bones, lampreys don't have many distinguishing features, and most of these don't develop until adulthood. Thus, significant conservation actions may be taken, or not taken, based on species designations that are … slippery.

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