Tenderfoot Research Project: Fuel loading and postburn tree mortality data

This product contains fuel loading, overstory tree mortality and burn severity data associated with the Tenderfoot Creek Experimental Forest Vegetative Treatment Research Project between 2000 and 2009. The project is located on the Tenderfoot Creek Experimental Forest (TCEF) which is north of White Sulphur Springs, Montana. Experimental shelterwood harvests combined with prescribed burning were implemented in the Tenderfoot Creek Experimental Forest between 1999 and 2003. These data contain fuel loading measurements collected preharvest/preburn; 1, 2, 3 and 8 years postharvest; as well as 1 and 6 years postburn. Tree diameter, crown scorch, basal charring, ground charring and cambium mortality following fire for mature lodgepole pine, Douglas-fir, subalpine fir, Engelmann spruce and whitebark pine trees were measured. Tree mortality was also recorded 1, 2, 3, 4 and 6 years after fire.
The Tenderfoot Creek Experimental Forest was established in 1961 as an experimental watershed in a representative lodgepole pine forest common east of the Continental Divide. Lodgepole pine forests cover approximately 50 million acres in the western US and are the third most extensive forest type in the American Rocky Mountains. Our mixture of silvicultural and prescribed burning treatments were designed to manage fuel loading and promote two-aged stand structures found naturally across the TCEF and elsewhere in lodgepole pine-dominated forests in the Northern Rockies. Fuel loading data were collected to quantify the results of these treatments on fuel load characteristics. Tree mortality data were collected to quantify burn severity and overstory tree survival.
Seedling, sapling and variable radius tree plot data were also collected as part of the Tenderfoot Research Project. See the Cross Reference section for access to other data collected at the Tenderfoot Creek Experimental Forest. Original metadata date was 03/02/2015. Minor updates (additions) to methods section were made on 06/12/2015. Additional minor metadata updates were made on 12/14/2016 and 09/08/2020.