Forest Burning Research Articles

Black-backed woodpecker occupancy in burned and beetle-killed forests: Disturbance agent matters

In the western United States, the black-backed woodpecker (Picoides arcticus) is a “snag specialist”, found predominantly in burned montane forests. While fire is a key disturbance agent in this system, recently, unprecedented large tracts of drought-stressed forest in the Sierra Nevada and Southern Cascades of California have succumbed to bark beetle outbreaks. Although this tree mortality could potentially be a boon for snag-dependent species, it is unclear whether the resulting snag forests provide sufficiently high-quality habitat for black-backed woodpeckers and other wildlife that are regionally associated with burned forests. We tested for differences in black-backed woodpecker occupancy between fire- and beetle-killed forests, and whether key environmental relationships driving woodpecker occupancy differed between stands affected by the two disturbance agents. Between 2016 and 2018, we surveyed for black-backed woodpeckers during 4448 surveys at 75 burned and 113 beetle-killed forest stands throughout the black-backed woodpecker’s range in California, detecting at least one black-backed woodpecker on 448 surveys (16.2%) in burned forests and 115 surveys (6.8%) in beetle-killed forests. Controlling for a suite of environmental variables that can affect habitat quality, the odds of black-backed woodpeckers occurring in burned forests were predicted to be 12.6 times higher than in beetle-killed forest. Occupancy declined with time-since-disturbance in fire-killed but not beetle-killed forests, but occupancy increased similarly with snag density resulting from either disturbance agent. Across our broad study region, black-backed woodpeckers were more likely to occur in burned forests at higher latitudes and elevations; these patterns were even stronger in beetle-killed forests, where we found woodpeckers only at the more northerly and higher elevation sites. Our results demonstrate that for this disturbed-habitat specialist, disturbance agent matters; black-backed woodpeckers do not use habitat created by bark beetle outbreaks as readily as habitat created by fire. Given the likely increased magnitude and extent of bark beetle outbreaks in the future, further work is needed to assess the role of beetle-killed forests in longer-term population dynamics of black-backed woodpeckers beyond the first decade after disturbance, and to investigate whether these results can be generalized to other fire-associated wildlife species in the region.

Experimental Investigation of the Suppression of Crown and Ground Forest Fires

Results of experimental investigations on the suppression of the flame combustion and thermal decomposition of forest combustible materials by aerosol flows of a pure water and aqueous solutions are presented. The characteristics of some sprayers were determined and the densities of wetting of a fire hotbed, provided by them, were calculated. The times of extinguishing hotbeds of model crown and ground forest fi res were measured, and distributions of temperatures and heat flows in them were determined. It is shown that the efficiency of extinguishing a forest fire is mainly determined by the sizes of the aerosol droplets acting on it.

Spesies Burung Famili Bucerotidae Pada Ekosistem Tahura Pocut Meurah Intan Sebagai Materi Pendukung Matakuliah Ekologi

Pocut Meurah Intan Forest Park is a natural conservation area and a place of learning, however this condition has changed in line with the high activity of local residents such as illegal logging, forest conversion, wildlife hunting and forest burning. This study aims to determine the types of birds of the Bucerotidae family in the Pocut Meurah Intan Forest Park Ecosystem as a support material for Ecology courses. The method used in this study is the explorative survey method. As the result, this study found 4 (four) bird species from the family Bucerotidae, namely Buceros rhinoceros, Buceros bicornis, Anthrococeros albirostris and Aceros undulatus. The results of this study will be utilized and developed theoretically in Ecology courses in the form of reference books.

Wildfire-induced short-term changes in a small mammal community increase prevalence of a zoonotic pathogen?

Natural disturbances like droughts and fires are important determinants of wildlife community structure and are suggested to have important implications for prevalence of wildlife‐borne pathogens. After a major wildfire affecting >1,600 ha of boreal forest in Sweden in 2006, we took the rare opportunity to study the short‐term response (2007–2010 and 2015) of small mammal community structure, population dynamics, and prevalence of the Puumala orthohantavirus (PUUV) hosted by bank voles (Myodes glareolus). We performed snap‐trapping in permanent trapping plots in clear‐cuts (n = 3), unburnt reference forests (n = 7), and the fire area (n = 7) and surveyed vegetation and habitat structure. Small mammal species richness was low in all habitats (at maximum three species per trapping session), and the bank vole was the only small mammal species encountered in the fire area after the first postfire year. In autumns of years of peak rodent densities, the trapping index of bank voles was lowest in the fire area, and in two of three peak‐density years, it was highest in clear‐cuts. Age structure of bank voles varied among forest types with dominance of overwintered breeders in the fire area in the first postfire spring. PUUV infection probability in bank voles was positively related to vole age. Infection probability was highest in the fire area due to low habitat complexity in burnt forests, which possibly increased encounter rate among bank voles. Our results suggest that forest fires induce cascading effects, including fast recovery/recolonization of fire areas by generalists like bank voles, impoverished species richness of small mammals, and altered prevalence of a rodent‐borne zoonotic pathogen. Our pilot study suggests high human infection risk upon encountering a bank vole in the fire area, however, with even higher overall risk in unburnt forests due to their higher vole numbers.Open Research Badges This article has earned an Open Data Badge for making publicly available the digitally‐shareable data necessary to reproduce the reported results. The data is available at https://osf.io/6fsy3/.

A 16,000-year record of climate, vegetation and fire from Wallacean lowland tropical forests

The tropical forests of Sulawesi represent some of the most diverse, biogeographically significant ecosystems globally. However, long-term ecological data for the region are scarce, making it difficult to predict vegetation response to future climatic and anthropogenic drivers of change. This is problematic as gauging the acclimation thresholds of forests within tropical Asia has been identified as an IPCC policy imperative.This study uses palynological and geochemical analysis of sediments from a tectonic basin – Lake Lantoa – to reconstruct the hydroclimatic, fire, and tropical rainforest dynamics of south Sulawesi over 16,000 years, and reveal the response of lowland ultramafic forest to large-scale environmental change. Our results show that the Late Pleistocene was characterised by a drier, more seasonal climate and persistent fire in the landscape. These conditions supported a slightly open, Gymnostoma-rich, semi-seasonal forest, and constrained the available habitat range for hydrophilic tropical conifers. Increased effective moisture in the Holocene, interpreted from the onset of periodic lake stratification under deeper conditions, appears to have precluded forest burning, and facilitated the expansion of a lowland ultramafic rainforest and upland tropical coniferous forest. An increase in garden/secondary forest taxa and ground ferns from ∼2 cal kyrs BP implies increased human management of the landscape. While these data highlight the compositional dynamism of lowland forest in Wallacea to seasonality, fire, and reduced precipitation, they demonstrate biome-scale resilience to glacial-scale environmental change. This contrasts with interpretations of forest sensitivity to climatic change drawn from analysis of leaf wax isotopes from adjacent lake basins, highlighting the value of adopting multi-proxy, taxonomically high-resolution techniques for reconstructing floristic histories.

A System Dynamics Model Examining Alternative Wildfire Response Policies

In this paper, we develop a systems dynamics model of a coupled human and natural fire-prone system to evaluate changes in wildfire response policy. A primary motivation is exploring the implications of expanding the pace and scale of using wildfires as a forest restoration tool. We implement a model of a forested system composed of multiple successional classes, each with different structural characteristics and propensities for burning at high severity. We then simulate a range of alternative wildfire response policies, which are defined as the combination of a target burn rate (or inversely, the mean fire return interval) and a predefined transition period to reach the target return interval. We quantify time paths of forest successional stage distributions, burn severity, and ecological departure, and use departure thresholds to calculate how long it would take various policies to restore forest conditions. Furthermore, we explore policy resistance where excessive rates of high burn severity in the policy transition period lead to a reversion to fire exclusion policies. Establishing higher burn rate targets shifted vegetation structural and successional classes towards reference conditions and suggests that it may be possible to expand the application of wildfires as a restoration tool. The results also suggest that managers may be best served by adopting strategies that define aggressive burn rate targets but by implementing policy changes slowly over time.

The Art Creation Design of The Dance Theatre “The Margin of Our Land”

This research was funded by the Directorate for Research and Community Service, Directorate General for Research and Development, Ministry of Research, Technology, and Higher Education. Abstract The process of art creation is essentially a process of transforming ideas into practice. In order to achieve this goal, the process of art creation is carried out systematically and supported by adequate scientific devices so that the ideas selected can be processed to maximum effect. In addition to carrying out research with supporting scientific approaches, these ideas must also be realized in the form of an auditory-visual work of art, in this case a performance of dance theatre, and supported by an attractive musical composition. The work of art entitled “The Margin of Our Land” departs from the social and cultural potential and conditions in Minangkabau that are related to ownership and control of ulayat land rights. From these social and cultural potential and conditions, the theme of the work is developed towards a portrayal of the increasingly narrow space available for human beings and other living creatures (flora and fauna). The burning of forests, exploitation of land for natural resources, and disputes between members of the community over land claims are all hot topics that frequently inspire works of art. This particular work aims to make people more aware that land must be protected from damage and human greed. The ideal system of land ownership that exists in the traditional Minangkabau culture presents an alternative for the way people treat land, but this ideal condition is no longer easy to find. The design used in the creation of the work of art entitled “The Margin of Our Land” is a combination of choreographic design, directorial design, and dramaturgical design. The choreographic design in this performance is a collaboration of Minangkabau silat and ulu ambek movements, modern dance movements, and contemporary dance movements. The directorial design focuses on creating a spectacle to develop the atmosphere, theme, dialogue, character, and plot. The dramaturgical design is concerned mainly with the culture that is created by the work. Keywords: design, creation, dance theatre DOI : 10.7176/ADS/77-08 Publication date :October 31 st 2019

Guest Introduction: More-than-human contact zones

Mary Louise Pratt used the term “contact zones” to describe those spaces where “cultures, meet, clash and grapple with each other, often in contexts of highly asymmetrical relations of power, such as colonialism, slavery, or their aftermaths as they are lived out in many parts of the world today”. Building on three sessions at the 2017 American Association of Geographers’ Annual Meeting, this special section features articles which apply Pratt’s concepts to environmental research. We argue that these articles demonstrate a “more-than-human ‘contact’ approach” to (1) better account for nonhuman agency by multiplying perspectives, (2) intervene in cases of violence and injustice, and (3) decolonize knowledge/production. Included are empirical case studies which describe encounters with the nonhuman; these include a postcolonial reading of the BBC’s Blue Planet II, a feminist science study of migratory shorebird conservation on New Jersey’s Delaware Bayshore, and political ecologies of prescribed forest burns by Parks Canada and tidal energy production in the Bay of Fundy. These articles broaden the definitions of “contact” and “justice” as they direct critical attention to the politics of environmental knowledge production, technoscientific means of understanding and managing the living environment, and forms of resistance to the exclusive governance of “wild” spaces. They present sites of environmental management and exploration as places of transformation, co-presence, unpredictability, and often intimate violence. The section demonstrates how political ecologies and more-than-human geographies expand Pratt’s “contact” perspective. An afterword is provided by Mary Louise Pratt.

KOMUNIKASI LINGKUNGAN SEBAGAI UPAYA PENCEGAHAN KERUSAKAN LINGKUNGAN KAWASAN WISATA (Studi Deskriptif Pada Pemerintah Kabupaten Pesisir Selatan di Kawasan Wisata Mandeh)

Enviromental problem that occur currently are increasingly damaging to the nature in tourist area of Mandeh by forest burning, mangroves hoarding, and the contamination that happens to the sea. Therefore, it needs a serious effort to build and increasing the concern of people around towards the environment to minimalizing the decrease in enviromental quality. This research using qualitative method by descriptive approaches to get the communication goals from Pesisir Selatan Enviromental Services towards the enviromental damage in tourist area of Mandeh. The relevancy of enviromental communication as an effort to communicate the enviromental sustainability, the researcher using communication planning theory that can help to build the awareness and concern for the society or industry in the enviromental surroundings. The result of this research shows that DLH (Pesisir Selatan enviromental services) using communication planning during their activity according to the 8 steps of enviromental communication, but it has not been done massively. Besides through a direct activity with the society such as socialization, training, coaching, forum group discussion and enviromental community, DLH also using media to share the information to the society such as using radio, SPM TV, the billboard, sign of prohibition and online media. Another finding obtained through communication planning analyze from DLH is they know the behaviour of society, knowing the potential of enviromental impact, and providing the options and direction, it turns out among them there is the existence of word of mouth in society.

Protective Lines for Suppressing the Combustion Front of Forest Fuels: Experimental Research

The article presents the results of experimental research, determining the conditions for suppressing the combustion front of forest fuels (FF) with the use of a protective water line. Integral parameters, velocities and other characteristics of the main interrelated heat and mass transfer processes, phase transformations and chemical reactions are studied. The conditions for suppressing the combustion front of typical forest fuels (needles; leaves; a mixture of needles, leaves and branches) are established. The experimental conditions are designed to be the utmost close to those of ground forest fires and parameters of fire lines: in terms of temperature, wind velocity, the forest fuel layer thickness, the size of water droplets, etc. The rational dimensions (width, length, depth) of the protective water lines, the density of water irrigation of the material surface, the volume of liquid, the time of spraying are determined. It is shown that effective conditions for forest burning localization can be achieved at almost complete thermal decomposition of a small layer of FF near the barrier line. It is established that necessary and sufficient conditions of FF combustion localization can be reliably predicted using the obtained dependences of specific water flow rate on FF volume.

Exploring how fire spread mode shapes the composition of pyrogenic carbon from burning forest litter fuels in a combustion wind tunnel

In this study, solid state 13C nuclear magnetic resonance (NMR) spectroscopy was used to explore the carbon-containing functional groups present in pyrogenic carbon (PyC) produced during different fire spread modes to forest litter fuels from a dry sclerophyll eucalypt forest burnt in a combustion wind tunnel. A replicated experimental study was performed using three different fire spread modes: heading fires (i.e. fires which spread with the wind), flanking fires (i.e. fires which spread perpendicular to the wind) and backing fires (i.e. fires which spread against the wind). In addition to 13C NMR measurements of PyC, detailed fire behaviour measurements were recorded during experiments. Experiments showed that heading fires produced significantly more aryl carbon in ash samples than flanking fires. All other experimental comparisons for burnt fuel samples involving different fire spread modes were statistically insignificant. Principal component analysis (PCA) was used to explore the relationship between 13C NMR functional groups and fire behaviour observations. Results from PCA indicate that maximising the residence time of high temperature combustion and the combustion factor (i.e. the fraction of pre-fire biomass consumed by fire) could be a method for increasing the amount of aryl carbon in PyC. Maximising the amount of aryl carbon could be beneficial for the overall PyC balance from fire, since more recalcitrant carbon (e.g. carbon with a higher aryl carbon content) that is not emitted to the atmosphere has been shown to have longer residence times in environmental media such as soils or sediments.

EFEKTIVITAS PENEGAKAN HUKUM TERHADAP PEMBAKARAN HUTAN DAN LAHAN DI KALIMANTAN TENGAH

Indonesia is a tropical country that has the threat of forest destruction, both due to illegal logging and burning of land that can cause permanent forest destruction. Central Kalimantan is a province that is prone to land and forest fires every year. Plantation land development such as palm oil and acacia are the dominant causes of forest and land fires that occur in Central Kalimantan. Extensive land and forest fires in Central Kalimantan occur because of human fires. The purpose of forest and land burning is for the economic benefit of the perpetrators of the burning. The impact of burning land and forests in the Central Kalimantan region, the community suffered loss of health problems, economic losses, disrupted transportation, and damage to wildlife habitat. The government has strictly regulated the prohibition of land and forest fires, but land and forest fires are still being carried out on purpose, so it is necessary to examine the effectiveness of law enforcement on forest and land burning in Central Kalimantan. The effectiveness of law enforcement on forest and land burning in Central Kalimantan has not been effective. This happens because there are still communities and companies that burn forests and land. Law enforcement factors, and community factors are obstacles to the ineffectiveness of law enforcement against forest and land burning in Central Kalimantan. For the rule of law to be effective, the law must be clear, law enforcers carry out their duties and functions, as well as direct action against perpetrators of land and forest fires. The effectiveness of law enforcement on forest and land burning in Central Kalimantan will be achieved if the government and law enforcement officials strictly enforce legal sanctions against perpetrators of land and forest fires in the form of administrative sanctions for forest fires in the form of, freezing of environmental permits, and or revocation of environmental permits, the responsibility for recovery and criminal responsibility of the person responsible for the business and / or activity must pay compensation and / or take certain actions. Add and threaten severe penalties for perpetrators of forest and land burning. Increasing the awareness that exists in each individual and group of the importance of obeying a rule for the common good.

Thermophysical and Thermokinetic Characteristics of Forest Combustible Materials

Experiments on determination of main thermophysical parameters (heat conductivity, heat capacity, thermal diffusivity) and thermokinetic characteristics (activation energy of pyrolysis and flaming) of typical forest combustible materials and their mixtures, taken from the Siberian, Central, Southern, and Far Eastern Federal Districts of Russia, have been performed in the wide temperature range 298–423 K corresponding to the initiation of thermal decomposition and subsequent flaming of forest combustible materials. Results of these experiments were compared with experimental data obtained by other researchers. A database, which can be used in the mathematical simulation of the thermal decomposition and flaming of forest combustible materials as well as in the determination of conditions necessary for the localization and suppression of a forest fi re, has been developed.

Особливості формування комплексу наземних лісових горючих матеріалів у соснових лісах Київського Полісся

Лісові насадження зазнають наростаючого впливу негативних чинників, спричинених глобальними змінами клімату та надмірним антропогенним навантаженням. Це призводить до збільшення частоти виникнення лісових пожеж. Особливо це стосується соснових лісів, де трапляється понад 70 % лісових пожеж. Інтенсивність і перебіг лісових пожеж значною мірою залежать від кількісного складу лісових горючих матеріалів (ЛГМ) та їхньої здатності до загоряння, умов погоди, і таксаційних та лісівничих характеристик насадження. Запаси ЛГМ визначали методами повного відбору їх на тимчасових пробних площах і визначення їхньої маси з облікових майданчиків. Проаналізовано особливості накопичення запасів ЛГМ у чистих соснових насадженнях залежно від типу лісорослинних умов (ТЛУ) і віку сосняків. Виявлено тенденції до збільшення запасів ЛГМ із віком насаджень. Встановлено зміну з віком у соснових деревостанах не тільки кількісних показників лісової підстилки, а і її якісних характеристик, зокрема співвідношення поміж шарами мінералізації лісової підстилки та змінами її товщини. У чистих соснових насадженнях 45-річного віку в умовах свіжого сугруду участь фракцій 1 – hr, 10 – hr, 100 – hr є на 5–6 % більшою порівняно з 30-річними сосняками, що свідчить про інтенсивніший відпад деревної ламані у цьому віці. Водночас, у свіжому суборі фракція 1 – hr є більшою на 3–5 % у 90-річному віці, фракція 100 – hr має більші запаси у 75-річному віці і становить понад 17 % від загального запасу ЛГМ. За умов недостатнього висихання нижніх шарів підстилки, які є значно вологішими порівняно з верхніми, вони не вигоряють цілком і під час пожежі виконують функцію термоізоляційного буфера, перешкоджаючи пошкодженню кореневих лап і коренів деревних рослин, розташованих у верхніх шарах ґрунту.

Nest site selection and nest survival of Black-backed Woodpeckers after wildfire

Abstract Recently burned coniferous forests host wildlife communities that respond to variation in burn severity, post-fire habitat structure, and patch configuration. Habitat selection theory predicts that birds inhabiting these variable post-fire landscapes will select nesting locations that confer an adaptive advantage through increased fitness and reproductive success. Understanding the effect of post-fire habitat on avian nesting ecology can provide valuable information to guide restoration and management after wildfire. The Black-backed Woodpecker (Picoides arcticus) is strongly associated with recently burned forests in the western United States, where it is used as an indicator species for the effects of post-fire forest management. Between 2011 and 2018, we located and monitored 118 Black-backed Woodpecker nests in burned forests of northern California. We evaluated the influence of habitat and nest characteristics on nest site selection and daily nest survival. Our results demonstrate a pattern of neutral congruence between habitat selection and fitness. Black-backed Woodpeckers showed strong selection for each of the nest habitat variables that we measured: woodpeckers selected moderately sized trees in areas of high snag density burned at high severity, but also in areas relatively close to low-severity or unburned edges. However, only nest initiation date affected nest survival, with decreased survival in late-season nests. Our results suggest that management actions aimed at maintaining breeding habitat for Black-backed Woodpeckers should prioritize retention and creation of pyrodiverse landscapes that include dense stands of snags (>5 snags per 100 m2) within ~500 m of forest that burned at low severity or remained unburned.

Mathematical Modeling of Canopy Forest Fire Spread in the Presence of Fire Breaks and Barriers

In this paper, we studied the spreading of canopy forest fires in the presence of fire breaks and barriers consisting of hardwood trees by mathematical modeling. Mathematically, this problem is reduced to solving Reynolds equations for a turbulent flow with allowance for chemical reactions. The control volume method was used to obtain a discrete analogue. Using numerical calculations, we obtained distributions of the fields of velocity, temperature, oxygen concentrations, volatile products of pyrolysis and combustion, and volume fractions of the condensed phase. The modeling allowed obtaining contours of the spread of canopy forest fires that depend on the stock and types of forest combustible materials, moisture content, wind speed and direction, etc. We were also able to determine the dependence of the size of fire breaks and barriers on the above parameters, at which a canopy fire stops spreading.

Effects of distance from devastated forests and topography on dung beetle assemblages in burned forests of East Kalimantan, Indonesia

Effects of distance from devastated forests and topography on dung beetle assemblages in burned forests of East Kalimantan, Indonesia

Composite Effects of Cutlines and Wildfire Result in Fire Refuges for Plants and Butterflies in Boreal Treed Peatlands

The challenge of understanding how composite disturbances affect ecosystems is a central theme of modern ecology. For instance, anthropogenic footprints and wildfire are increasing globally, but how they combine remains poorly understood. Here, we assessed how a disturbance legacy of about 10-m-wide cutlines, cleared for seismic assessments of fossil fuels, affects wildfire dynamics and species assemblages in boreal peatland forests. One year after the Fort McMurray Horse River wildfire of 2016 (Alberta, Canada), we assessed differences in plant and butterfly assemblages across forests and cutlines, from unburned and severely burned peatlands. We hypothesized that, by reducing fire severity, cutlines could support plants and butterflies in the presence of a severe wildfire (the “refuge hypothesis”). Proportion of burned duff was five times higher in burned forests compared to burned cutlines (53% vs. 11%). We found 107 plant and 46 butterfly taxa, with species richness being, respectively, about 1.4 and 1.7 times higher in lines than in forests, independently from wildfire. Models for single species demonstrated different responses to disturbance, including no responses (25% of species), dominant effects of fire or lines (50%), additive effects (10%), and interactive effects (15%). Cutline refuges occurred for 20% of plant and 70% of butterfly species. Multiple lines of evidence suggest that anthropogenic refuges from fire occur in these peatland forests, yet different patterns of responses confirm the complex effects occurring with composite disturbances. Given that cutlines dissect thousands of square kilometers of boreal forests in North America, further studies should investigate their implications on recovery trajectories of these forests’ succession after wildfire.

PENINGKATAN PERILAKU PEDULI HUKUM DAN LINGKUNGAN MELALUI PROGRAM KEMITRAAN MASYARAKAT PEDULI HUKUM

Law enforcement requires firm assertiveness and public awareness. Law enforcement will guarantee the life of a safe nation and state. Communities need high legal awareness so that they have high legal behavior. The province of West Kalimantan is one of the provinces that experiences land and forest fires every year. Factors of land and forest fires include natural and human factors. Natural factors, especially the dry season is a difficult factor to control, so one of the preventive steps is to control human factors. Control of human factors through increasing the care of law and the environment so that humans do not violate the law, especially the burning of land and forests. The Community Care Law Partnership Program (PKM) is one way to improve legal and environmental care behavior. The method for implementing PKM activities was through socialization and counseling, demonstrations and training, and assistance to partners, namely the people of Rasau Jaya III village, including farmers, PKK women and youth groups. The results of the activity showed that the Rasau Jaya III village officials and the community were enthusiastic in following this activity. The activity was carried out on the sidelines of the busy work of the people of Rasau Jaya III village. Activities are carried out with a persuasive approach so that interaction with the community becomes comfortable. This is done so that the transfer of knowledge and skills goes well. Based on the results of the questionnaire before and after the activity showed that the law and environment care behavior of the community of Rasau Jaya III increased. This condition is very important to create law enforcement and environmental care for a comfortable human life.

Optimal decisions for salvage logging after wildfires

Strategic, tactical, and operational harvesting plans for the forestry and logging industry have been widely studied for more than 60 years. Many different settings and specific constraints due to legal, environmental, and operational requirements have been modeled, improving the performance of the harvesting process significantly. During the summer of 2017, Chile suffered from the most massive wildfires in its history, affecting almost half a million hectares, of which nearly half were forests owned by medium and small forestry companies. Some of the stands were burned by intense crown fires, which always spread fast, that burned the foliage and outer layer of the bark but left standing dead trees that could be salvage harvested before insect and decay processes rendered them unusable for commercial purposes. Unlike the typical operational programming models studied in the past, in this setting, companies can make insurance claims on part or all of the burnt forest, whereas the rest of the forest needs to be harvested before it loses its value. This problem is known as the salvage logging problem. The issue also has an important social component when considering medium and small forestry and logging companies: most of their personnel come from local communities, which have already been affected by the fires. Harvesting part of the remaining forest can allow them to keep their jobs longer and, hopefully, leave the company in a better financial situation if the harvesting areas are correctly selected. In this work, we present a novel mixed-integer optimization-based approach to support salvage logging decisions, which helps in the configuration of an operational-level harvesting and workforce assignment plan. Our model takes into account the payment from an insurance claim as well as future income from harvesting the remaining trees. The model also computes an optimal assignment of personnel to the different activities required. The objective is to improve the cash position of the company by the end of the harvest and ensure that the company is paying all its liabilities and maintaining personnel. We show how our model performs compared to the current decisions made by medium and small-sized forestry companies, and we study the specific case of a small forestry company located in Cauquenes, Chile, which used our model to decide its course of action.