Topic: Fuels and Fuel Treatments

Forest managers are faced with escalating size, severity, and cost of wildfires. To mitigate this, U.S. federal land management agencies are increasing forest treatments such as mechanical thinning and prescribed fire. While there is a growing body of work on treatment–wildfire interactions,…

Background

Large, severe fires are increasing throughout frequent-fire forests of the western United States due to warming climatic conditions, as well as legacies of early twentieth century land-use practices and anthropogenic fire exclusion. Resource objective (RO)…

Background

An increasing wildfire problem in western North America has created a policy space for Indigenous fire stewardship (IFS) to mitigate wildfire. We compare how British Columbia and California have supported IFS—two jurisdictions with distinct ecosystems but…

Background

The active use of wildfire to meet forest management objectives is an important tool to increase the scale of forest restoration in dry, historically frequent-fire forests. While there are many benefits of reintroducing fire to these forests, the impact of…

Background

Barriers are the landscape features that firefighters leverage to stop wildfire spread. In the United States, decision-makers discuss barrier availability in a framework called the Wildland Fire Decision Support System (WFDSS).

Aims…

Background

Quantifying fuel moisture content accurately is critical for understanding global vegetation flammability. While models representing changes in dead fuel moisture are relatively advanced, the mechanisms driving fluctuations in live fuel moisture content (LFMC) have been…

Despite widespread concern over increases in wildfire severity, the mechanisms underlying this trend remain unclear, hampering our ability to mitigate the severity of future fires. There is substantial uncertainty regarding the relative roles of extreme weather conditions, which are exacerbated…

The sagebrush biome in the western United States is a focus of widespread conservation concern due to multiple interacting threats including larger, more severe wildfires. Given the immense scale of the region and limited resources, prioritizing restoration treatments is essential for optimizing…

Managers across the western US seek effective fuel treatment strategies to mitigate hazardous fuel loads and risks of high severity fire in dry conifer forests. Conventional fuel hazard reduction treatments emphasis reducing canopy fuel continuity and surface fuel loading using an even spaced,…

Wildfire activity has accelerated with climate change, sparking concerns about uncharacteristic impacts on mature and old-growth forests containing large trees. Recent assessments have documented fire-induced losses of large-tree habitats in the US Pacific Northwest, but key uncertainties remain…