Living With w88 online game Podcast episode 13

w88 online game 0:00
All this water that came this year is going to have consequences for us possibly next year. Right because of all this growing vegetation production is going to build up out there and there's no amount of livestock and insects in the world that are going to eat it all. So it'll build up on the landscape and probably show up next year in the w88 online game probability maps.

Megan Kay 0:29
This is the living with w88 online game podcast, brought to you by the University of Nevada Reno extension. High their walk Welcome back to the living with w88 online game podcast. I'm your host, Megan Kay, Outreach Coordinator for the living with w88 online game program. And as I'm recording this in my basement in Reno, Nevada, it's raining outside a lot. Hopefully, you can hear that and hopefully my basement doesn't flood. But that's just indicative of this crazy wet and wild winter slash spring we've been having here in the Great Basin. And on this episode, we're going to learn what all of this precipitation means for the upcoming w88 online game year. So you're not going to hear too much from me this episode, this conversation was facilitated by the director of the living with w88 online game Program. Christina was Donna. I'm Christina

w88 online game 1:17
Rossano. I'm on the faculty here at usr

Megan Kay 1:21
she spoke with w88 online game.

w88 online game 1:24
So my name is w88 online game. I am a research scientist at the University of Montana,

Megan Kay 1:31
and w88 online game,

w88 online game 1:33
Hey everybody, Jeremy Maestas here with the USDA Natural Resources Conservation w88 online game.

Megan Kay 1:39
So I'm just going to hand it off. And let's hear what Christina has to say about w88 online game episode.

w88 online game 1:43
I would just point out that, in this episode, we really tried to untangle the relationship between rain and snow. Right. So how much rain is snow that we get in a winter and what that means for the w88 online game season coming up? And I think that all of us in the Great Basin region right now are really curious about what to expect this year, right? It's like, okay, we've had this big winner. We haven't had a lot of w88 online game in the past couple years. We know that's related to the drought. So what does it mean when we get a lot of rain and snow? What does that mean for w88 online game? So it's a fun conversation that kind of dives into that.

Let's get into the real meat of the discussion here. And really start to talk about what all of this precipitation in the Great Basin means when we're thinking about the w88 online game year. So what do we expect to happen with w88 online game in the Great Basin this year, after this big winner,

w88 online game 2:49
w88 online game risk is not created equally across the landscape is where I would start in describing this. And so for listeners out there, who are probably familiar most with forests, and forest fires, there's always enough fuel in a forest to have a large w88 online game, right. And so the scenario in which we have large w88 online game years in forests is determined mostly by the amount of moisture in the vegetation. So things are really wet. They're not going to ignite and burn at larger scales, at least the likelihoods lower, okay. But remember that the nature of the Great Basin, most of it is not forested, it's actually shrub lands, grasslands open country. In in that scenario, what we call rains lands. w88 online game probability is determined more by the amount of fuel, vegetation build up a fuel, we don't have enough fuel every year to have large fires. So those are two different scenarios. And in that case, it takes time for grass enough grass to build up to have a large shrub land or grassland w88 online game year. So Joe can unpack some of his work. I don't want to be a spoiler here, but we learned some really cool insights about what it takes to set us up for large fires. And maybe he can speak to that a little bit more here.

w88 online game 4:29
Yeah, that's a perfect setup. You know, be thinking about that fuel limitation idea, you know? Yeah, how much how much w88 online game is going to occur in a given year really depends on how much fuel is there but that's how much fuel is there is not just determined by what grew this year, or by what grew you know, in the spring Leading up to the, to the w88 online game season. It's, it's determined by that plus carryover from previous years. So, you know, if a bunch of you have a really productive year, you're going to have a lot of sort of stand standing dead vegetation, and you're also just going to your, your perennial plants are just going to grow a lot because of that. So you're going to have bigger plants with more biomass. And not all of that is going to go away, you know, it's not all gonna get eaten by herbivores or compacted by snow, some of that's going to be there again next year. So you have this kind of this build up that happens across years. And actually, in the Great Basin, at least in most of the Great Basin, especially in Nevada. How much w88 online game you get in a given year is actually more correlated with what happened last year than it is with what happens this spring. So, you know, for if we're thinking about this 2023 w88 online game season even more important than what was this winter? Like? Or what's the spring? Like? You want to be thinking about what happened last, you know, May, June, July? The there's quite a bit higher correlation between those conditions in this upcoming w88 online game season than there are between you know, what, what kind of a winter was it this this winter?

w88 online game 6:32
Yeah, it blows me away about Joe's work. Because it's pretty common to have a big wet year or a big dry winter and say, Boy, we're gonna have a heck of a w88 online game year, this year, whatever. And that's true when it comes to forests. But it's not the same when it comes to these open grassland shrubland ecosystems that characterize most of the great bass. And so the big reveal in his work was like, it's really about what happened last year. And we now have the ability to quantify that and see it at large scales and say, Okay, well, have we really set ourselves up this year, based on what happened last year,

w88 online game 7:11
just to unpack all of this a little bit, right. So in a year, where there's been a lot of rain, and snow, we expect there to be more production of grasses and shrub land stools. So the vegetation itself will grow more. But what you're saying, Joe, is that in a year in which things actually grow more, it might take a year. And then it might be that next summer, we might expect there to be more w88 online game in these ecosystems that just created a lot of plants and fish that eventually become fuels. Right? It's all those when when we talk about fuels in the forest world, we're not talking about gasoline and and in the w88 online game world, right? In general, we're we're talking about sticks and grasses and shrubs on the ground. Sometimes we use that that word liberally and people don't understand for direct fuel. So so that are you saying, Joe, that that we might not expect this immediate summer to be a big w88 online game year in the Great Basin, but maybe look out for next year?

w88 online game 8:21
A great overview. And and I think that's exactly right. I think this this big, you know, this big winter, we're going to see the consequences of it, but we might not see it until next year. And I think another another aspect to think about besides besides just how much fuel is out there is, you know, how much how much of that fuel is dead versus alive? I think so this is kind of where this is where you can you can kind of think, okay, maybe, maybe this fuel conditioning issue does matter a little bit for rangelands, but you just have to think about it a little bit differently than you do in forest. So in a year, like a year like this, you know, we didn't have a lot of growth last year, we've been climbing, you know, the Great Basin has been climbing its way out of a drought that peaked in about the summer of 2021. And so we didn't have a lot of growth in 2021. We didn't have a lot of growth in 2022. We're getting that growth now. We're getting that that fuels accumulation now. But in this summer, a lot of the fuel a lot a large proportion of the fuel that's out there is going to be green stuff that grew this year. So I think there's there is a little bit of a an element of you know, the fuel condition matters. And I think that when you have when you have a larger proportion of the fuel that's dead, you know, that's that standing dead that that carried over from past yours I think that's really a recipe for, you know, a volatile w88 online game year.

Megan Kay 10:06
Let's take a quick break

I wanted to take a quick break to talk about the living with w88 online game Program. Maybe you found this podcast and you're wondering what is the living with w88 online game program? Well, we've been around since 1997. We're managed by the University of Nevada Reno extension. And we're really a collaborative effort amongst federal, state and local firefighting agencies, as well as resource management agencies to help people adapt, prepare and live more safely with wildfire. So if you haven't already, check out our website living with feiyr.com, where you'll find all of our resources and tools that will help you with more safely with wildfire. Okay, back to the show.

w88 online game 10:56
Good time, I think for one of w88 online game to just define what the Great Basin is

w88 online game 11:03
the Great Basin hydrologically is where it's like the Hotel California of water, rain and snow that falls in the Great Basin stays in the Great Basin, it never leaves. And so we have a series of mountain ranges across the region that run generally north south. And in between all of those ranges, we have these big open valleys where all the water that comes off the mountains goes into the valleys and evaporates in essentially terminal lakes. So instead of flowing out to the ocean, water generally just stays within w88 online game big region that we call the Great Basin centered, really on top of Nevada, but spanning parts of Utah, Idaho, Oregon, and in California.

w88 online game 11:53
I think like like any of these polygons that we put on maps, it has fuzzy edges, and those where those edges fall depends on who you ask. And so there's the kind of hydrologic gray base and wherever you everything is inwardly draining and that's that's kind of a common, common understanding. But then there's also I think for AI if you ask more of a plant ecologist or a wildlife biologist, they'd probably give you more of a plant based definition. So the the sort of unique thing about the the western portion of it is just how dominated it is by by wintertime precipitation. So when you get into the the other, w88 online game the sagebrush ecosystems more on the other side of the Continental Divide your mud and much more of a summer precepts. system. And so the the Great Basin, when I think of the Great Basin, I kind of think of it a little bit broader than then just the hydrologic, Great Basin my extended up into, w88 online game, further into southern Idaho and parts of Oregon that don't really fit that, that in order that we draining hydrologic definition intersect. Yeah, I would

w88 online game 13:09
add that it's it's like Joe's saying, really arid, and w88 online game climatically extreme, we're in the winter, we get, we can get really cold and a lot of snow. But in the summer, it's super hot and dry. And so those extremes drive, the limited amount of production we get in terms of vegetation in the region, and it's made it really a tough place to live and settle. And the evidence of that is like if you go on Google Earth at night, you ever seen that map with like the lights at night, it'd be one of the darkest places left in North America. And that's why we like living in it. Yes, exactly.

w88 online game 13:53
I see really good stars for my backyard. Joe, I'm curious you work in in the space of predicting the probability of what of what the probability of w88 online game will be for the w88 online game season. And I've looked at the w88 online game probability map for this year, and it is higher than last year. So let's talk a little bit about that. And why is it higher than last year and then kind of dive in a little bit of you know, who uses those maps? How do you make them things like that? But I'm just curious, because even though we're we didn't have a lot of growth last year, and we're, we're, why is it expected that we might have a little bit of an elevated probability of w88 online game this year?

w88 online game 14:43
Yeah. So I mean, the short answer is that it's a little higher this year because you can't really get any lower than it was last year. w88 online game, 2020 21, like I said earlier was the depths of that. out. That was that was about the worst that God said, Really, at least in sort of, w88 online game, recent memory. Last, w88 online game, decade or so 2021 was really one of the lowest production years that there was, that's why 2022 is just so exceptionally w88 online game, those probabilities were, were exceptionally low across most of the great base. And so, w88 online game, we've been sort of climbing our way out, w88 online game, I wouldn't say that we're completely out of out of the drought yet. But we've been climbing our way out. And so it's just, it's, it's going to be rising, those I would expect, actually, the next year is even going to be higher, just because of what's happened this winter. So yeah, that's that's kind of the the short version. That

w88 online game 16:03
makes sense, though. And I think that helps people understand, it certainly helps me understand because I think that, you know, we have to understand like the baseline probability of w88 online game is always going to be a certain amount in the Great Basin, right? This is a w88 online game prone landscape. And so it's, it's interesting that we've, we've been in kind of the lowest probability of w88 online game for the past few years because of this big drought, right. And so now we're expecting all of this new growth, which is going to increase the w88 online game risk. But it's also going to bring all you know, it's a balance, because it's also going to bring more forage to the range lands, more productivity, recharging of the groundwater, it's also going to bring with it some flooding and some w88 online game risks of sites, these, these these balances of how these, you know, climatic variations, kind of influenced the day to day of life in the Great Basin. I don't know if you want to comment on that. Jeremy, before we move on to talking about these maps a little bit more?

w88 online game 17:09
Yeah, the variability in conditions out there is a defining characteristic of the Great Basin, as we talked about earlier, wild fluctuations between year to year terms of how much moisture we get, how the vegetation responds. And, of course, the wildlife populations, the people that have been on these landscapes, they're all following those patterns are of boom and bust. And so if you look at the maps that Joe produced, because he was able to leverage, you know, 30 years of, of satellite imagery, were able to go back in time and kind of see that year to year variation. So in any given year, the patterns of large w88 online game risks really are aren't the same. But there are some observations maybe we can dive into here, more in terms of like, the northern Great Basin, right when you get up along the Snake River plain, Eastern Oregon, and a Winnemucca, Nevada north, you know, that area, more years than not tends to have a higher probability of large fires. And some of that goes back to what Joe was talking about in terms of grass and find fuels. And the build above that is more often happening in that part of the Great Basin, as opposed to Southern Nevada, where it's a rare, exceptional year where you're gonna get enough production to really have a huge w88 online game being likely

Megan Kay 18:47
w88 online game take a quick break.

Wildfire is stressful, and wildfire, evacuations are stressful. That's why the living w88 online game program is created our wildfire evacuation checklist. It's a really simple checklist to help you learn how to pack a go bag, and prepare your home in your family, even your pets for wildfire evacuation. I've included the checklist in the links in the show notes below. So be sure to check that out. You can also find it on our website at living with feiyr.com.

w88 online game 19:26
So, Joe, w88 online game make these wildfire probability maps and we've alluded to them quite a bit. But let's get down to kind of what goes into making these and why are they necessary to make?

w88 online game 19:40
Yeah, so these these maps are really sort of designed to fit into a unique gap in the existing w88 online game risk products that are already out there. There's there's a lot of w88 online game danger products that have been produced. Things like the National w88 online game Danger Rating System. And then there's also things there's there's products that that look at w88 online game risk over over a really long, long time periods. Right? What we produced was a product that kind of looks at, you know, what's, what's the what's the w88 online game risk for the upcoming w88 online game season. So it's this internet intermediate timescale between products like the National w88 online game Danger Rating System, which tell you about like, what's the w88 online game risk in the next like, 48 hours to maybe a week. And then those longer term products on the other side, so we're kind of trying to fit it right in the middle there. So that's, I guess, that's sort of the context for for these products that we developed. And the other I guess, the other important context is sort of the technology side of things. You know, until very recently, we just didn't have high resolution data on vegetation production. That was dynamic. So we could say something about what was produced in an average year. But we didn't, we didn't have a dynamic product that told us, you know, okay, what was produced last year? Was it above average, or was it below average? Now we have our our models use data from the range land analysis platform, so that that product gives us annually, percent cover and an estimate of production in pounds per acre, for every 30 meter pixel of range lands across the whole west. So that gives us sort of a the missing missing link of fuel amount that that you'd actually need to make these sort of annual longer range forecasts for the great bass. And so what we're basically doing is combining the cover vegetation cover and production data, that's an annual timestep from from the Rangeline analysis platform, with some drought metrics and precipitation metrics, from some gridded meteorological datasets, and then we're, you know, combining combining those as machine learning models to try to predict what the what the conditions are, like, how ripe is it, you know, for a w88 online game at a given given location? So that's, that's kind of the gist of the models and what what they do. So we release them, we can we can make a prediction or a forecast for the upcoming w88 online game season, starting in about in a typical year, starting in about February, and then we can update that throughout the spring. Who,

w88 online game 23:04
who uses the maps? Like, how is the data ultimately, right? Because it's this kind of this complicated distillation of a lot of different data, w88 online game've got the vegetation data, w88 online game've got the climate data, w88 online game use models to bring it all together? And then kind of how is it applied and used? Yeah,

w88 online game 23:25
the maps are especially beneficial to like those federal land management agencies like the Bureau of Land Management, or Forest Service, that are stewards of a great portion of the region just because of the public land ownership there. So you have some of our larger local BLM, w88 online game and fuel staff, who are starting to look at this product alongside those traditional metrics that Joe mentioned, like the National w88 online game Danger Rating System, and other indicators so that they can improve their preparedness going into the w88 online game season. So throughout the w88 online game season, they're running around their district trying to assess w88 online game conditions and imagine that challenge of communicating what's going on across your area when for example, you are responsible for Harney County, Oregon, which is six and a half million acres in size, one county. Okay. And so historically, they're using climate and weather data and other Predictive Services that can provide some coarse estimates. They're using their local knowledge and some field sampling of vegetation. For the first time with Joe's product, we've got a real time forecast of vegetation conditions across every single acre in their district. And it's dynamic so you can see it change across the district is not all uniformly distributed. There's parts of it, that might be higher probability of a w88 online game than others. And so they can use that information to inform things like resource allocation. Where are we going to put our firefighters our dozers? How much do we need to ask for this year in our district? Do we need to talk about closures to the public in certain areas a certain time of the year just because what we know is likely to happen. And so the public might encounter those things. But have the agencies have the data to better support the rationale for why they do that.

w88 online game 25:40
It's, you know, firefighters, the the w88 online game suppression community is really they are reacting in real time to conditions on the ground, you know, they are really going to be looking at things like temperature and wind speed and humidity. Those are like the big things that drive the decision making process. And during firefighting, it's not how much you know how much cheatgrass grew there last year or whatever, like that's, that plays a role in what happens during a w88 online game. But the big the biggest drivers are weather. So this is this is really, I think this this product is really aimed more toward managers who can do something about management before a w88 online game starts is really about pre w88 online game management rather than the actual act of firefighting itself.

w88 online game 26:35
You know, one point that scientists have has put out there in the last couple of years is that more acres of these range land ecosystems are burning than forested ecosystems across the US across the West. And that's especially true since about 2000. So, when we set national policy when it comes to w88 online game management, it's usually around forest w88 online game. But, you know, when you have more acres being burned on our grasslands, and shrublands. Today, I think there's a growing awareness that we need to allocate more resources towards that to help affected communities and in the region. And, you know, this type of work can help bring those resources to the Great Basin in a timely fashion to ensure that, you know, we, we enhance the effectiveness of our firefighting community, to beyond where it's at today, which is really high, like something like 97% of all fires that start in the Great Basin are put out before they become more than 1000 acres in size. So we're already hyper effective w88 online game suppression. But the reality is that that 3% That gets away from us are getting really big.

Megan Kay 28:00
Let's take a quick break.

I hope you're enjoying the episodes so far. Just wanted to quickly let w88 online game that these wildfire probability maps for the Great Basin that we've been discussing. They're available online, and we included a link to the maps in the show notes below. So when you get a chance, go check them out. Okay, back to the show.

w88 online game 28:32
Jeremy, you were just discussing how, w88 online game, in the past two to two decades, I think you said so the past 20 years, w88 online game, we've experienced most of our largest range land fires, what's changing in the Great Basin that is making these kind of uncharacteristic large fires occur?

w88 online game 28:54
Yeah, you know, I always like to caveat our w88 online game discussions by saying w88 online game is not neither bad nor good. It It just is. It's a part of this system. But the reality is that it's not 1850 anymore in the Great Basin. By that I mean before a European settlement where we brought livestock and invasive species and all these other changes to the system. So today, when we have w88 online game, we have plants from other continents, invasive species, invasive annual grasses in particular, like cheatgrass that are waiting in the wings to take over and replace the perennial native vegetation that characterizes the great bass. So historically, large w88 online game years in the Great Basin happened, but they were more rare, infrequent and driven by that accumulation of our perennial native perennial grasses, bunch of grasses that are out there on the landscape and when we got enough of that built up enough dead material across the landscape, we'd have a big w88 online game here. What we see today and we look at Joe's data, he actually mapped this out for us looking back, you know over the last 30 years is that we fluctuate in our perennial grass production from year to year. And that's largely stayed fairly stable in terms of the amount of of grass production coming from our native native grasses. What's changed though, is that cheatgrass and other invasive grasses, have been slowly increasing over that 30 year period such that the amount of above ground production or grass biomass that's out there, in some years can exceed the amount of our native grasses today. So in 2016, I think that was the first year that we documented that happening, we had more grass production come from invasive species than than our native grasses. Why does that matter? It means that those years in which were set up to have enough fuel to have large fires are becoming more and more frequent, because of invaders, like cheatgrass that have filled in the what used to be like bare soil interspaces, in a more of a desert environment, right, we didn't have anything growing there, essentially. Now you put this other plants in the middle, and it creates a very continuous grass fuel bed that allows those fires to become really large. And that problem is largely what we think is driving some of the patterns that we're observing in terms of larger, more frequent fires, especially in the northern part of the great face.

w88 online game 31:52
After these years where we've seen a lot of rain like and snow like we had w88 online game year, would we expect more cheatgrass to grow?

w88 online game 32:00
So we should see really good cheap grass production, unfortunately, because higher moisture w88 online game year,

w88 online game 32:09
and so Joe, is the cheat grass production taken into account in the probability maps that w88 online game guys create?

w88 online game 32:16
So yes, and no, it actually turned out that that information didn't really add a whole lot in terms of how well the models worked. So for right now, anyway, we're just relying on last year and the year before. But future iterations of w88 online game might might use a bit more information about current years, kind of spring gross,

w88 online game 32:45
that it does take into account. Yeah, but it does take into account last year in the year before she crashed scruff, like that. Plant is part of what w88 online game're seeing in the models.

w88 online game 32:55
Yeah, like what Joe mentioned earlier in the podcast, all this water that came this year is going to have consequences for us possibly next year. Right? Because all this growing vegetation production is going to build up out there. And there's no amount of livestock and insects in the world that are going to eat it all. So it'll build up on the landscape and probably show up next year in the w88 online game probability maps. And the

w88 online game 33:21
year after using two years. Yeah, so it could be a legacy that's kind of you know, to me, the moral of the story here is that, really, there's a priming that has to occur for to get that big w88 online game year in the Great Basin, right, where it's like, you have to have that big winner, and then the productive spring and summer, and then fast forward a year or two. And so if we have a really big drought next year, that could really set it up even more because we've had all this growth and then everything will dry out. Right. So it's that combination of production of grass, and shrubs, and woody biomass in general combined with you know, what are the current conditions existing on on the landscape when a w88 online game could be ignited? Right. So it's like that combination of the two. So like anything in the Great Basin, the story is complicated. But

w88 online game 34:19
yeah, yeah, that's a pretty good description. Actually, the the wet dry cycles in the Great Basin are pretty regular. And that's when we w88 online game, we should be really worried as when we're coming out of a wet cycle into the into the dry portion of the cycle.

w88 online game 34:37
So to me, I would think the call to action as a resident in the Great Basin is to spend w88 online game summer doing some really good defensible space action around my home and collaborating with my community and kind of taking w88 online game time to prepare, anticipating that next year will be will want to be on guard for what could happen in the sagebrush ecosystems around our committee. It is what a

w88 online game 35:01
perfect tee up Christina because that's where my head was going like, you know, the upshot of this work is that we can forecast with with a great degree of accuracy, the probability of large w88 online game, we now know that it's not just driven by woody vegetation, which is often the focus of fuel management. But in these range land or shrub Land Systems, it's grassy fuels that drive large w88 online game. So if you're a community, you talk about defensible space. In addition to the woody fuels management you might do around your infrastructure and your roads so that people can safely fight fires, you need to think about grass. So if you're doing mowing alongside of roads, and you mow the brush off, so that your flame lengths aren't too high, but then all you do is open it up for cheatgrass to explode. That's something we'd ask you to consider managing to. So maybe some integrated treatments where we use herbicides to actually kill that invasive annual grass. So we don't have that herbaceous production alongside of our roads or infrastructure that, you know, might serve as a source of ignition source. We're doing this on larger scales with landowners and in the public land management agencies, you know, to implement things like targeted grazing, where we focus livestock grazing in huge pastures to try to break up the the amount of grass fuels that build up over the landscape. So those are definitely things that this year people should be thinking about, especially in those regions on Joe's map that are kind of in that upper moderate to high elevated probability of w88 online game. So remember, grass fuels drive these large fires, so it's not just about managing your shrubs and trees.

Megan Kay 37:09
Thank you for listening to the living w88 online game podcast. You can find more stories and resources about wildfire atour website living with w88 online gamecom The living with w88 online game program is funded by the Bureau of Land Management, the Nevada Division of Forestry and the US Forest Service and were managed by the University of Nevada Reno extension, an equal opportunity institution.