Angora Fire vegetation monitoring: 2-3 field jobs available for summer, plus grad student funding

Last year the Angora Fire burned 1240 hectares of mixed conifer forest in the Lake Tahoe Basin, consuming 254 homes in the process, and costing about $12,000,000 to suppress. This was one of the highest profile wildfires to burn in Western forests in decades. I have secured funding to monitor vegetation succession, forest fuels accumulation, forest regeneration, hydromulch effects, long-term tree mortality, and aspen recruitment within the fire perimeter, and seek two or three dedicated, skilled and hard-working individuals to work with me in this monitoring this summer.
Work would commence about the beginning of June, and end about the beginning of September, depending on crew availability. My preference would be to set up an agreement with a university researcher/professor, via a CESU-type contract, and I would especially be interested in students who have graduate research interests that may tie into postfire ecosystem recovery, fire or forest ecology, or similar topics. In the case of a research agreement, there is probably sufficient money to carry a grad student over at least into the spring of next year, and I am hopeful that similar money will appear for further monitoring studies over the next few years.

Salaries are negotiable and will depend on the contractual agreement and how it was set up, but I expect them to be at about the junior specialist (UC-system level), assuming previous undergrad degree, or ca. $15/hour. The Angora Fire is adjacent to South Lake Tahoe, in the Angora Creek drainage. Obviously, there is a lot to do in the area in one's free time.

To pique your interest, a pdf of preliminary results from our fire severity monitoring within the fire perimeter is attached.

Contact:

HUGH D. SAFFORD
Regional Ecologist
USDA Forest Service
Pacific Southwest Region
1323 Club Drive
Vallejo, CA 94592
Phone: 707-562-8934 FAX: 707-562-9050
Cell: 530-219-0898 UC-Davis lab: 530-752-3940
E-mail: hughsafford@fs.fed.us or
hdsafford@ucdavis.edu