Post-fire rehabilitation seeding in the U.S. Intermountain West, primarily conducted by the Bureau of Land Management, is designed to reduce the risk of erosion and weed invasion while increasing desirable plant cover. Seeding effectiveness is typically monitored for three years following treatment, after which a closeout report is prepared. We evaluated 220 third-year closeout reports describing 214 aerial and 113 drill seedings implemented after wildfires from 2001 through 2006. Each treatment was assigned a qualitative success rating of good, fair, poor, or failure based on information in the reports. Seeding success varied by both treatment (aerial or drill) and year. Aerial seedings were rated 13.6% good, 18.3% fair, 29.6% poor, and 38.5% failure. Drill seedings were rated as 30.1% good, 24.8% fair, 23.0% poor, and 22.1% failure. Logistic regression analysis found that aerial seedings were more successful with increasing elevation, long-term average precipitation, and precipitation received in the first and third years following treatment. Drill seeding success was best explained by elevation only, suggesting that these treatments are less sensitive to long-term average and precipitation received after treatment than aerial seedings. We found monitoring reports did not report seeding success consistently using quantiative objectives, control areas to proived adequate comparisons, and did not provide maps, making them difficult to assess spatially. Providing additional information in monitoring reports about important factors that can influence seeding success such as pre-fire vegetation would be useful for the creation of a decision analysis tool to aid land managers who are confronted with whether or not to perform post-fire rehabilitation treatments given limited resources and budgets.

Mitigation of ecological damage caused by rangeland wildfires has historically been an issue restricted to the western United States. It has focused on conservation of ecosystem function through reducing soil erosion and spread of invasive plants. Effectiveness of mitigation treatments has been debated recently. We searched for literature on postfire seeding of rangelands worldwide. Literature databases searched included SCOPUS, Dissertation Abstracts, Forest Science, Tree search, Web of Science, Google Scholar, and science.gov. Search terms within publications included fire or wildfire in combination with seeding, rehabilitation, restoration, revegetation, stabilization, chaining, disking, drilling, invasives, weeds, cheatgrass, medusahead, sagebrush, rangeland, or grassland. The initial pool of potentially relevant articles numbered 1,519. Abstracts of all papers were reviewed. This pool included many papers not directly relevant to our review, including different ecosystems and different issues associated with wildfire (e.g. air pollution or property damage). On the basis of titles and abstracts, 126 potentially relevant papers were reviewed by at least two investigators. Upon further evaluation, some papers either did not pertain to our focal ecosystems or did not address aspects of soil erosion or invasive species. Effectiveness of postfire seedings was examined in 8 erosion and 19 invasive species cases. This data set provides these citations and the evaluations of the two observers.

This data set is a warehouse of completed vegetation treatment areas and associated attribute information for the BLM. Each system that currently maintains vegetation treatments will provide treatment area information on a regular basis to the treatment area data set. Vegetation treatments on BLM-managed land include Invasive Species Treatments, Emergency Stabilization and Rehabilitation Treatments, Range Improvement Treatments, Fuels Treatments and/or Forest Treatments. Vegetation treatments documented in this data set may be categorized by the general type of treatment that is used on the area being treated. These different types of vegetation treatments are Chemical, Physical, Biological, and Prescribed Fire. The first three are further categorized by the treatment sub-type. Chemical treatments are either pesticide or fertilizer; Physical treatments are alteration, planting, or removal; and Biological treatments are either classical or non-classical. Prescribed Fire is the only fire related treatment and has no sub-types. For more information contact us at blm_id_stateoffice@blm.gov.

This data set is a warehouse of completed vegetation treatment areas and associated attribute information for the BLM. Each system that currently maintains vegetation treatments will provide treatment area information on a regular basis to the treatment area data set. Vegetation treatments on BLM-managed land include Invasive Species Treatments, Emergency Stabilization and Rehabilitation Treatments, Range Improvement Treatments, Fuels Treatments and/or Forest Treatments. Vegetation treatments documented in this data set may be categorized by the general type of treatment that is used on the area being treated. These different types of vegetation treatments are Chemical, Physical, Biological, and Prescribed Fire. The first three are further categorized by the treatment sub-type. Chemical treatments are either pesticide or fertilizer; Physical treatments are alteration, planting, or removal; and Biological treatments are either classical or non-classical. Prescribed Fire is the only fire related treatment and has no sub-types. For more information contact us at blm_id_stateoffice@blm.gov.

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This dataset contains observations used to better understand the initial establishment of sagebrush (Artemisia sp.), in the first 1-2 years post-wildfire. Field data come from 460 sagebrush populations sampled across the Great Basin and many GIS-derived co-variates are included as well.

This dataset contains observations used to better understand the initial establishment of sagebrush (Artemisia sp.), in the first 1-2 years post-wildfire. Field data come from 460 sagebrush populations sampled across the Great Basin and many GIS-derived co-variates are included as well.

This polygon feature class represents the spatial extent and boundaries for completed BLM Vegetation Treatment Area polygons. A vegetation treatment area is in "completed" status once it has been established by official process.

This polygon feature class represents the spatial extent and boundaries for completed BLM Vegetation Treatment Area polygons. A vegetation treatment area is in "completed" status once it has been established by official process.