Bark beetle outbreaks have resulted in the loss of hundreds of thousands of conifers on approximately 30 million hectares of forested lands in western North America during the last decade. Many forests remain susceptible to bark beetle infestation and will continue to experience high levels of conifer mortality until suitable host trees are depleted, or natural factors cause populations to collapse. Stand conditions and drought, combined with warming temperatures, have contributed to the severity of these outbreaks, particularly in high-elevation forests.

Conventional wisdom suggests that large scale bark beetle outbreaks alter fuel complexes resulting in an increased potential for severe fires. Conversely, fires damage trees that may predispose them to bark beetle attack. In reality there is little specific quantified data supporting these assertions, and until recently, relationships between fire and western bark beetles in forests of North America have not been extensively studied. The magnitude of recent outbreaks and large wildfires has resulted in a flurry of research attempting to quantify bark beetle/fire/fuel interactions.
 
We hope and expect that our freely accessible, online bibliography may be of great benefit to any scholarly research. The bibliography searching can be conducted through titles, by author name, or by descriptive words. Where possible, full text of the documents are provided as PDF documents.

Get the The Bark Beetles, Fuels, and Fire Bibliography RSS feed

Subscribe to our feed

To enable the The Bark Beetles, Fuels, and Fire Bibliography RSS feed, simply drag this link into your RSS reader.

Follow

2008

Link

Cross-scale Drivers of Natural Disturbances Prone to Anthropogenic Amplification: The Dynamics of Bark Beetle Eruptions, K. F. Raffa, B. H. Aukema, B. J. Bentz, A. L. Carroll, J. A. Hicke, M. G. Turner, and W. H. Romme; BioScience

Annotated Bibliography for Forest Managers on Fire-Bark Beetle Interactions, Martin Simard, Erinn N. Powell, Jacob M. Griffin, Kenneth F. Raffa, and Monica G. Turner; USFS Western Wildlands Environmental Threats Assessment Center

2007

Link

Fire, Fuels, and Restoration of Ponderosa Pine-Douglas-fir Forests in the Rocky Mountains, USA, W. L. Baker, T. T. Veblen, and R. L. Sherriff; Journal of Biogeography

Link

The Effectiveness of Vegetation Management Practices for Prevention and Control of Bark Beetle Infestations in Coniferous Forests of the Western and Southern United States, Christopher J. Fettig, Ronald F. Billings, A. Steven Munson, T. Evan Nebeker, and Jose F. Negrón; Forest Ecology and Management

Link

Influence of Fallen Tree Timing on Spruce Beetle Brood Production, Elizabeth G. Hebertson and Michael J. Jenkins; Western North American Naturalist

Link

Predicting Postfire Douglas-Fir Beetle Attacks and Tree Mortality in the Northern Rocky Mountains, Sharon Hood and Barbara Bentz; Canadian Jorunal of Forest Research

Link

Relative Influence of Diseases and Other Small-Scale Disturbances on Fuel Loading in the Black Hills, J E. Lundquist; Plant Disease

Link

Fire Climbing in the Forest: A Semiqualitative, Semiquantitative Approach to Assessing Ladder Fuel Hazards, K. M. Menning and S. L. Stephens; Western Journal of Applied Forestry

Link

Mountain Pine Beetle-Induced Changes to Selected Lodgepole Pine Fuel Complexes within the Intermountain Region, Wesley G. Page and Michael J. Jenkins; Forest Science

Link

Predicted Fire Behavior in Selected Mountain Pine Beetle-Infected Lodgepole Pine, Wesley Page and Michael J. Jenkins; Forest Science

Link

Virulence of, and Interactions Among Mountain Pine Beetle Associated Blue-Stain Fungi on Two Pine Species and Their Hybrids in Alberta, A. V. Rice, M. N. Thormann, and D. W. Langor; Canadian Journal of Botany

2006

Link

Collaborative Capacity, Problem Framing, and Mutual Trust in Addressing the Wildland Fire Social Problem : An Annotated Reading List, Jeffrey J. Brooks, Alexander N. Bujak, Joseph G. Champ, and Daniel R. Williams

Link

Integration of Visual and Olfactory Cues of Hosts and Non-hosts by Three Bark Beetles (Coleoptera: Scolytidae), S. A. Campbell and J. H. Borden; Ecological Entomology

Link

Landscape Analyses of Douglas-fir Beetle Populations in Northern Idaho, K. J. Dodds, S. L. Garman, and D. W. Ross; Forest Ecology and Management

Link

Risk Rating Systems for the Douglas-fir Beetle in the Interior Western United States, K. J. Dodds, S. L. Garman, and D. W. Ross; Western Journal of Applied Forestry

Link

The Effects of Mechanical Fuel Reduction Treatments on the Activity of Bark Beetles (Coleoptera: Scolytidae) Infesting Ponderosa Pine, Christopher J. Fettig, Joel D. McMillin, John A. Anhold, Shakeeb M. Hamud, Robert R. Borys, Christopher P. Dabney, and Steven J. Seybold; Forest Ecology and Management

Link

Fuels and Fire Behavior in Chipped and Unchipped Plots: Implications for Land Management Near the Wildland/Urban Interface, Jeff S. Glitzenstein, Donna R. Streng, Gary L. Achtemeier, Luke P. Naeher, and Dale D. Wade; Forest Ecology and Management

Link

History of Fire and Douglas-fir Establishment in a Savanna and Sagebrush-Grassland Mosaic, Southwestern Montana, USA, E. K. Heyerdahl, R. F. Miller, and R. A. Parsons; Forest Ecology and Management

Link

Interactions Among Fire, Insects and Pathogens in Coniferous Forests of the Interior Western United States and Canada, T. J. Parker, K. M. Clancy, and R. L. Mathiasen; Agricultural and Forest Entomology

Link

Estimating Canopy Fuel Characteristics in Five Conifer Stands in the Western United States Using Tree and Stand Measurements, E. Reinhardt, J. Scott, K. Gray, and R. Keane; Canadian Journal of Forest Research

Link

Tree Mortality From Fire and Bark Beetles Following Early and Late Season Prescribed Fires in a Sierra Nevada Mixed-conifer Forest, Dylan W. Schwilka, Eric E. Knappb, Scott M. Ferrenberga, Jon E. Keeleya, and Anthony C. Capriod; Forest Ecology and Management

Link

Comparison of Crown Fire Modeling Systems Used in Three Fire Management Applications, Joe H. Scott; USDA Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Paper

Link

The Irrationality of Continued Fire Suppression : An Avoided Cost Analysis of Fire Hazard Reduction Treatments Versus No Treatment, Gary Snider, P J. Daugherty, and D Wood; Journal of Forestry

Link

Warming and Earlier Spring Increase Western U.S. Forest Wildfire Activity, A. L. Westerling, H. G. Hidalgo, D. R. Cayan, and T. W. Swetnam; Science

Link

Estimating the Probability of Mountain Pine Beetle Red-attack Damage, M. A. Wulder, J. C. White, B. Bentz, M. F. Alvarez, and N. C. Coops; Remote Sensing of the Environment