Forests and Rangelands Tools
There are a variety of tools available to assess, implement, and monitor forest and rangelands conditions, projects, and operations.
Forest Operations Equipment Catalog
Are you looking for information concerning the tools, equipment, and techniques used to extract biomass from the forest? Located on the Forest Service Forest Management website, the Forest Operations Equipment Catalog provides information and tools pertaining to equipment used in forest operations.
Forest Operations Equipment Catalog…
Applied Wildland Fire Research in Support of Project Level Hazardous Fuels Planning Project
The Applied Wildland Fire Research in Support of Project Level Hazardous Fuels Planning Project provides decision support in the form of research information and new tools for project-level fuels planning. Their goal is to improve access and use of research information. The synthesis represents the collective judgment of the most knowledgeable scientific experts in forest, wildlife and plant ecology, fire behavior, fire ecology, social science and other fields.
Fire Regime Condition Class
Fire Regime Condition Class (FRCC) is an interagency, standardized tool for determining the degree of departure from reference condition vegetation, fuels and disturbance regimes. Assessing FRCC can help guide management objectives and set priorities for treatments. The Fire Regime Condition Class website is an interagency site designed to provide guidance and information to the user regarding the FRCC.
Visit the Fire Regime Condition Class website…
Forest Management Service Center
The U.S. Forest Service Forest Management Service Center (FMSC) provides mensuration, statistical, modeling, biometric, sampling, and analysis skills to the Forest Service and also cooperates and works in partnership with other government agencies (federal, tribal, and state), research, colleges and universities, forest industry, consultants, and individuals in the United States and other countries.
Good Neighbor Authority
The Good Neighbor Authority allows the Forest Service to enter into cooperative agreements or contracts with States and Puerto Rico to allow the States to perform watershed restoration and forest management services on National Forest System (NFS) lands. Congress passed two laws expanding Good Neighbor Authority (GNA): the FY 2014 Appropriations Act and the 2014 Farm Bill. Each law contains slightly different versions.
Read more about the Good Neighbor Authority…
Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity
The Wildland Fire Leadership Council (WFLC) has sponsored the Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity (MTBS) project to help meet monitoring information requirements contained within the National Fire Plan. MTBS will map and assess the burn severity for all large current and historical fires across the continental United States, Alaska, and Hawaii. MTBS data will provide the first consistent and comprehensive look at fire effects and associated trends spanning a 25 year period across the entire United States. A description of background, methods, schedule, and products along with annual National reports are available at the MTBS website.
Visit the Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity website…
Stewardship Contracting
Congress enacted legislation granting the Forest Service and the Bureau of Land Management contracting authority to “enter into stewardship contracting projects with private persons or other public or private entities to perform services to achieve land management goals for the national forests and the public lands that meet local and rural community needs.” These contracts permit the Forest Service and Bureau of Land Management to trade goods for services; that is, it allows private organizations or businesses to remove forest products, such as trees and undergrowth, in return for performing work to restore and maintain healthy forest ecosystems.