Research Database
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5
Evidence for strong bottom-up controls on fire severity during extreme events
Year: 2025
BackgroundRecord fire years in recent decades have challenged post-fire forest recovery in the western United States and beyond. To improve management responses, it is critical that we understand the conditions under which management can mitigate severe wildfire impacts, and when it cannot. Here, we evaluated the influence of top-down and bottom-up fire severity forcings on 17 wildfires occurring during two consecutive record-setting years in the eastern Cascade Mountains of Washington State. Despite much of the area having been burned after an extended period of fire…
Fire Effects and Fire Ecology, Fire History, Fuels and Fuel Treatments, Restoration and Hazardous Fuel Reduction
Publication Type: Journal Article
A Negative Fire–Vegetation Feedback Substantially Limits Reburn Extent Across the North American Boreal Biome
Year: 2025
The North American boreal biome (NAB) is warming at 2–4 times the mean global rate, contributing to increasing wildfire activity. The degree to which this trend alters biome-level feedbacks to global climate depends on how strongly bottom-up feedbacks between fire and vegetation dampen the effects of climate drivers. As young vegetation recovering from fire covers a growing portion of the landscape, it could resist reburning, buffering against further increases in fire. Resistance to reburning could be particularly strong in the NAB, where slow post-fire fuel accumulation is sometimes…
Publication Type: Journal Article
A tale of two fire systems: indigenous fire stewardship in British Columbia and California
Year: 2025
BackgroundAn 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 similar histories of colonialism and its socio-ecological consequences. We examine how IFS is incorporated into each jurisdiction’s institutional framework, and the barriers to, and opportunities for implementation.ResultsEach jurisdiction’s approach to recognizing IFS is shaped by different…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Power and planning: a critical discourse analysis of tribal and non-tribal Oregon wildfire protection plans
Year: 2025
BackgroundSince the late 1800s, the US government has largely removed Indigenous fire stewardship practices from the landscape by implementing a top-down fire suppression system that criminalized traditional fire practices and denaturalized the role of fire in forested environments. A century of routine fire suppression produced dense, homogenous forests capable of sustaining high-intensity wildfire that exceeds the suppression capabilities of land management organizations in many regions, spurring federal leaders to modify management approaches. As part of this change,…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Governance of Indigenous data in open earth systems science
Year: 2025
In the age of big data and open science, what processes are needed to follow open science protocols while upholding Indigenous Peoples’ rights? The Earth Data Relations Working Group (EDRWG), convened to address this question and envision a research landscape that acknowledges the legacy of extractive practices and embraces new norms across Earth science institutions and open science research. Using the National Ecological Observatory Network (NEON) as an example, the EDRWG recommends actions, applicable across all phases of the data lifecycle, that recognize the sovereign rights of…
Publication Type: Journal Article