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CapitalPress.com
January 29, 2016
Software aids wildfire recovery plans
Keith Weber uses
satellite photos
to help planners
develop strategies
Keith Weber
Age: 49
Family: Wife, Soo, and son,
Dustin
Hometown: Chubbuck, Idaho
Occupation: Director of
Idaho State University’s GIS
Training and Research Center
By JOHN O’CONNELL
Capital Press
POCATELLO, Idaho —
Thanks to an advanced map-
ping system called RECOV-
ER, fire recovery specialists
were already developing re-
habilitation plans for Idaho’s
massive Soda wildfire while
it was still burning.
Keith Weber, director
of Idaho State University’s
Geographic Information Sys-
tem Training and Research
Center, was the lead inves-
tigator in developing the
cloud-based software, which
quickly assembles satellite
imagery and informational
“layers” from several sources
to overlay on a fire map.
RECOVER’s 21 existing
datasets cover critical top-
ics for fire restoration such
as soil type, wildlife habitat,
vegetation and topography.
Weber started work on
RECOVER in 2012 with a
grant from NASA’s applied
sciences program, which
seeks to find practical uses
for its satellite and comput-
er technology to benefit the
public. Working closely with
the Bureau of Land Man-
agement and the Idaho De-
Education: Bachelor’s
degree in environmental
science, field biology and
ecology from the University
of Wisconsin and a master’s
degree in wildlife biology from
the University of Montana
Innovation: The RECOVER
mapping system, used by the
Bureau of Land Management
and other agencies to more
quickly assess wildfire dam-
age so rehabilitation plans
can be developed
John O’Connell/Capital Press
Keith Weber, Idaho State University’s Geographic Information System director, shows maps of the
Soda wildfire using RECOVER computer mapping technology he developed for use by agencies such
as the Bureau of Land Management in more quickly developing fire recovery plans. The technology
was funded by a NASA grant.
partment of Lands, he tested
RECOVER on six Idaho fires
in 2013. Last summer, in the
first season of a three-year
NASA grant to further refine
RECOVER, Weber’s system
was used on its first large
wildfire, the 283,000-acre
Soda fire in Western Idaho.
“What we’ve learned is
even with a fire of that size,
RECOVER can easily handle
that,” Weber said.
On such large fires, he es-
timates RECOVER can save
land managers up to four days
of work assembling data and
maps from a host of different
sources, making certain all of
the information is up-to-date
and in a common format.
Michael Kuyper, a BLM
supervisory natural resource
specialist in southeast Ida-
ho, said his agency has three
weeks to submit a rehabilita-
tion plan and make funding
requests after a fire is extin-
guished. Kuyper, who has
worked closely with Weber
on fine-tuning RECOVER,
said the technology stands to
help the agency meet report
deadlines more easily and
more quickly get seed and
straw on the ground in pri-
ority areas.
Kuyper hopes Weber will
add additional RECOVER
layers for grazing allotments
and rangeland improve-
ments. He’s particularly ea-
ger for Weber to complete
a reporting function, which
should provide land manag-
ers instant statistics, such as
miles of fence line and num-
bers of cattle troughs with-
in a burn area, simply by
checking boxes, rather than
cutting and pasting from
GIS images to obtain figures
manually. Kuyper said hav-
ing access to RECOVER on
hand-held devices will also
enable BLM workers to up-
date recovery maps while in
the field, rather than taking
GPS data back to the office to
be uploaded.
Kuyper said RECOVER
maps upload much faster
than the current system, can
be used by employees who
aren’t experts in GIS soft-
ware and can be accessed
from the “cloud” — the
term computer experts use
to describe applications and
data kept on large computer
servers linked to the Internet
— by devices without down-
loading software.
Weber said RECOVER
will also be used to evalu-
ate fuel loads in burn areas
during the months preceding
fires and for longterm moni-
toring of rehabilitated areas.
John L. Schnase, Weber’s
co-investigator at the NASA
Goddard Space Flight Cen-
ter, said RECOVER was
developed for fire rehabilita-
tion, but agencies have rec-
ognized it has applications
before, during and after fires.
“Right now, we’ve been
focusing on Idaho, but over
the next three years we want
to use this in other Western
states,” Schnase said.
Schnase emphasized RE-
COVER fills a niche and will
likely be among many data
systems used by fire manag-
ers.
Schnase also hopes to use
climate model data in RE-
COVER to predict precipi-
tation, temperature and soil
moisture over time.
This story first appeared
Sept. 18, 2015.
Plant materials center shifts focus to sage grouse
Derek Tilley and his staff look for ways
to help sage grouse thrive across West
By JOHN O’CONNELL
Capital Press
ABEDEEN, Idaho — Der-
ek Tilley and his staff at the
USDA’s Aberdeen Plant Ma-
terials Center have an over-
riding goal in their efforts to
select hardy wildflower seed
and improve practices for cul-
tivating native plants.
In 2014, they shifted their
research focus toward im-
proving sage grouse habitat to
help avert an endangered spe-
cies listing for the native bird.
A listing of the sage grouse
under the federal Endangered
Species Act would lead to sig-
nificant restrictions on many
industries, including livestock
grazing.
Tilley, who joined the
center’s staff in 2004 as a
range conservationist and
was promoted to manager in
October, said he and his staff
spend a couple of weeks each
summer in the mountains
seeking sources of native
plant seeds. At the center’s
farms and greenhouses, they
select for the plants that es-
tablish easily and withstand
Derek Tilley
Age: 42
Job: Manager of the USDA
Natural Resources Conserva-
tion Service’s Aberdeen Plant
Materials Center
Family: Wife, Amber, and
children, Nathaniel, 13,
Logan, 11, Andelin, 7.
Hometown: Aberdeen, Idaho
Education: Bachelor’s de-
gree in botany, master’s de-
gree in plant taxonomy from
Brigham Young University.
John O’Connell/Capital Press
the elements, giving small
amounts of their improved
seed to the University of
Idaho’s Foundation Seed
Joyce Capital, Inc.
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Derek Tilley, manager of the USDA’s Plant Materials Center in Aberdeen, Idaho, holds a tray of
sulfur buckwheat, which his facility is propagating for Grand Teton National Park. His center recently
switched its focus to improving sage grouse habitat.
Program for propagation.
Commercial growers ac-
quire public seed from UI to
increase for Conservation Re-
serve Program mixes, public
land restoration, private graz-
ing land improvement and
other uses.
The Aberdeen facility, es-
tablished in 1939, is one of
27 U.S. plant materials cen-
ters. A secondary priority in
Aberdeen is developing cover
crops, which are plants cul-
tivated on agricultural land
solely for soil health benefits.
The center also increases seed
collected from national parks
for park restoration projects.
In the past, each center
strove to address general re-
gional resource concerns, but
that spread their efforts too
thin, Tilley said.
“Each region now has just
a few areas of focus,” Tilley
said. “Even though we’ve
only been focused on sage
grouse for this past year, a lot
of our work in the past is di-
rectly applicable.”
A few years ago, Tilley’s
program released Maple
Grove Lewis flax, a native
flower to replace Europe-
an-derived flax in seed mixes.
This fall, the program released
seed of hoary tansyaster, a na-
tive purple aster. The center is
building a supply of a native
grass, world buckwheat. The
plants support insects con-
sumed by sage grouse chicks,
which also feed on some of
the vegetation.
Chris Colt, a U.S. Forest
Service wildlife biologist,
said protecting and restor-
ing habitat is among the best
ways to help sage grouse.
“One of the biggest is-
sues for sage grouse is loss
of habitat from wildfires,”
Colt said. “Wildfire is really
spurred by exotic grasses —
mostly cheatgrass and Medu-
sahead.”
In Eastern Idaho’s Curlew
National Grassland, Colt said
the center has planted test
plots for the past five years,
seeking plants that benefit
sage grouse and compete
well with invasive species.
Tilley has also applied for
a Forest Service grant to in-
vestigate ways to effectively
plant wildflowers and forbs
in the field for the benefit of
sage grouse. He hopes to ex-
periment with snow fencing,
which could trap snow and
bolster growth of plants that
like cool, moist conditions,
and fabric, which would trap
heat and moisture and stim-
ulate growth much like in a
greenhouse.
Tilley said pollinators
and sage grouse benefit most
from “islands” of native forbs,
shrubs and grasses.
This story first appeared
March 3, 2015.
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