Research Database
Displaying 1 - 20 of 28
The outsized role of California’s largest wildfires in changing forest burn patterns and coarsening ecosystem scale
Year: 2023
Highlights • We evaluated trends for 1,809 fires that burned 1985–2020 across California forests. • Top 1% of fires by size burned 47% of total area burned across the study period. • Top 1% (18 fires) produced 58% of high and 42% of low-moderate severity area. • Top 1% created novel landscape patterns of large burn severity patches. • These large fires create new opportunities for managing forest resilience. Although recent large wildfires in California forests are well publicized in media and scientific literature, their cumulative effects on forest structure and implications for forest…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Using soil moisture information to better understand and predict wildfire danger: a review of recent developments and outstanding questions
Year: 2023
Soil moisture conditions are represented in fire danger rating systems mainly through simple drought indices based on meteorological variables, even though better sources of soil moisture information are increasingly available. This review summarises a growing body of evidence indicating that greater use of in situ, remotely sensed, and modelled soil moisture information in fire danger rating systems could lead to better estimates of dynamic live and dead herbaceous fuel loads, more accurate live and dead fuel moisture predictions, earlier warning of wildfire danger, and better forecasts of…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Climate and fire impacts on tree recruitment in mixed conifer forests in Northwestern Mexico and California
Year: 2023
Frequent-fire forests were once heterogeneous at multiple spatial scales, which contributed to their resilience to severe fire. While many studies have characterized historical spatial patterns in frequent-fire forests, fewer studies have investigated their temporal dynamics. We investigated the influences of fire and climate on the timing of conifer recruitment in old-growth Jeffrey pine-mixed conifer forests in the Sierra San Pedro Martir (SSPM) and the eastern slope of Sierra Nevada. Additionally, we evaluated the impacts of fire exclusion and recent climate change on recruitment levels…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Less fuel for the next fire? Short-interval fire delays forest recovery and interacting drivers amplify effects
Year: 2023
As 21st-century climate and disturbance dynamics depart from historic baselines, ecosystem resilience is uncertain. Multiple drivers are changing simultaneously, and interactions among drivers could amplify ecosystem vulnerability to change. Subalpine forests in Greater Yellowstone (Northern Rocky Mountains, USA) were historically resilient to infrequent (100–300 year), severe fire. We sampled paired short-interval (<30-year) and long-interval (>125-year) post-fire plots most recently burned between 1988 and 2018 to address two questions: (1) How do short-interval fire, climate,…
Publication Type: Journal Article
An aridity threshold model of fire sizes and annual area burned in extensively forested ecoregions of the western USA
Year: 2023
Wildfire occurrence varies among regions and through time due to the long-term impacts of climate on fuel structure and short-term impacts on fuel flammability. Identifying the climatic conditions that trigger extensive fire years at regional scales can enable development of area burned models that are both spatially and temporally robust, which is crucial for understanding the impacts of past and future climate change. We identified region-specific thresholds in fire-season aridity that distinguish years with limited, moderate, and extensive area burned for 11 extensively forested ecoregions…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Projecting live fuel moisture content via deep learning
Year: 2023
Background: Live fuel moisture content (LFMC) is a key environmental indicator used to monitor for high wildfire risk conditions. Many statistical models have been proposed to predict LFMC from remotely sensed data; however, almost all these estimate current LFMC (nowcasting models). Accurate modelling of LFMC in advance (projection models) would provide wildfire managers with more timely information for assessing and preparing for wildfire risk. Aims: The aim of this study was to investigate the potential for deep learning models to predict LFMC across the continental United States 3 months…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Shaded fuel breaks create wildfire-resilient forest stands: lessons from a long-term study in the Sierra Nevada
Year: 2023
Background In California’s mixed-conifer forests, fuel reduction treatments can successfully reduce fire severity, bolster forest resilience, and make lasting changes in forest structure. However, current understanding of the duration of treatment effectiveness is lacking robust empirical evidence. We leveraged data collected from 20-year-old forest monitoring plots within fuel treatments that captured a range of wildfire occurrence (i.e., not burned, burned once, or burned twice) following initial plot establishment and overstory thinning and prescribed fire treatments. Results Initial…
Publication Type: Journal Article
A comparison of smoke modelling tools used to mitigate air quality impacts from prescribed burning
Year: 2023
Background. Prescribed fire is a land management tool used extensively across the United States. Owing to health and safety risks, smoke emitted by burns requires appropriate manage- ment. Smoke modelling tools are often used to mitigate air pollution impacts. However, direct comparisons of tools’ predictions are lacking. Aims. We compared three tools commonly used to plan prescribed burning projects: the Simple Smoke Screening Tool, VSmoke and HYSPLIT. Methods. We used each tool to model smoke dispersion from prescribed burns conducted by the North Carolina Division of Parks and Recreation…
Publication Type: Journal Article
DUET - Distribution of Understory using Elliptical Transport: A mechanistic model of leaf litter and herbaceous spatial distribution based on tree canopy structure
Year: 2023
Heterogeneity in surface fuels produced by overstory trees and understory vegetation is a major driver of fire behavior and ecosystem dynamics. Previous attempts at predicting tree leaf and needle litter accumulation over time have been constrained in scope to probabilistic models that consider a limited number of key factors influencing tree litter dispersal patterns and decomposition processes. We present a mechanistic model for estimating variation in surface fuels called the Distribution of Understory using Elliptical Transport (DUET). DUET uses a pre-generated voxelated canopy array and…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Consistent spatial scaling of high-severity wildfire can inform expected future patterns of burn severity
Year: 2023
Increasing wildfire activity in forests worldwide has driven urgency in understanding current and future fire regimes. Spatial patterns of area burned at high severity strongly shape forest resilience and constitute a key dimension of fire regimes, yet remain difficult to predict. To characterize the range of burn severity patterns expected within contemporary fire regimes, we quantified scaling relationships relating fire size to patterns of burn severity. Using 1615 fires occurring across the Northwest United States between 1985 and 2020, we evaluated scaling relationships within fire…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Building water resilience in the face of cascading wildfire risks
Year: 2023
Severe wildfire is altering the natural and the built environment and posing risks to environmental and societal health and well-being, including cascading impacts to water systems and built water infrastructure. Research on wildfire-resilient water systems is growing but not keeping pace with the scale and severity of wildfire impacts, despite their intensifying threat. In this study, we evaluate the state of knowledge regarding wildfire-related hazards to water systems. We propose a holistic framework to assess interactions and feedback loops between water quality, quantity, and…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Exploring and Testing Wildfire Risk Decision-Making in the Face of Deep Uncertainty
Year: 2023
We integrated a mechanistic wildfire simulation system with an agent-based landscape change model to investigate the feedbacks among climate change, population growth, development, landowner decision-making, vegetative succession, and wildfire. Our goal was to develop an adaptable simulation platform for anticipating risk-mitigation tradeoffs in a fire-prone wildland–urban interface (WUI) facing conditions outside the bounds of experience. We describe how five social and ecological system (SES) submodels interact over time and space to generate highly variable alternative futures even within…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Climate change is narrowing and shifting prescribed fire windows in western United States
Year: 2023
Escalating wildfire activity in the western United States has accelerated adverse societal impacts. Observed increases in wildfire severity and impacts to communities have diverse anthropogenic causes—including the legacy of fire suppression policies, increased development in high-risk zones, and aridification by a warming climate. However, the intentional use of fire as a vegetation management tool, known as “prescribed fire,” can reduce the risk of destructive fires and restore ecosystem resilience. Prescribed fire implementation is subject to multiple constraints, including the number of…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Community Forests advance local wildfire governance and proactive management in British Columbia, Canada
Year: 2023
As wildfires are increasingly causing negative impacts to communities and their livelihoods, many communities are demanding more proactive and locally driven approaches to address wildfire risk. This marks a shift away from centralized governance models where decision-making is concentrated in government agencies that prioritize reactive wildfire suppression. In British Columbia (BC), Canada, Community Forests—a long-term, area-based tenure granted to Indigenous and/or local communities—are emerging as local leaders facilitating proactive wildfire management. To explore the factors that are…
Restoration and Hazardous Fuel Reduction, Risk Assessment and Analysis, Social and Community Impacts of Fire
Publication Type: Journal Article
Avoided wildfire impact modeling with counterfactual probabilistic analysis
Year: 2023
Assessing the effectiveness and measuring the performance of fuel treatments and other wildfire risk mitigation efforts are challenging endeavors. Perhaps the most complicated is quantifying avoided impacts. In this study, we show how probabilistic counterfactual analysis can help with performance evaluation. We borrow insights from the disaster risk mitigation and climate event attribution literature to illustrate a counterfactual framework and provide examples using ensemble wildfire simulations. Specifically, we reanalyze previously published fire simulation data from fire-prone landscapes…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Mechanical thinning restores ecological functions in a seasonally dry ponderosa pine forest in the inland Pacific Northwest, USA
Year: 2023
An increasingly important goal of federal land managers in seasonally dry forests of the western US is restoring forest resilience. In this study, we quantified the degree to which a thinning treatment in a dry forest of eastern Oregon restored aspects of forest resilience by focusing on key functional attributes of our study system. First, we measured several physiological responses of overstory trees that are associated with resilience, including radial growth, resin production, abundance of non-structural carbohydrates (NSC), and leaf area. Second, we investigated understory vegetation…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Climate influences on future fire severity: a synthesis of climate-fire interactions and impacts on fire regimes, high-severity fire, and forests in the western United States
Year: 2023
Background
Increases in fire activity and changes in fire regimes have been documented in recent decades across the western United States. Climate change is expected to continue to exacerbate impacts to forested ecosystems by increasing the frequency, size, and severity of wildfires across the western United States (US). Warming temperatures and shifting precipitation patterns are altering western landscapes and making them more susceptible to high-severity fire. Increases in large patches of high-severity fire can result in significant impacts to landscape processes and ecosystem function…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Optimizing the implementation of a forest fuel break network
Year: 2023
Methods and models to design, prioritize and evaluate fuel break networks have potential application in many fire-prone ecosystems where major increases in fuel management investments are planned in response to growing incidence of wildfires. A key question facing managers is how to scale treatments into manageable project areas that meet operational and administrative constraints, and then prioritize their implementation over time to maximize fire management outcomes. We developed and tested a spatial modeling system to optimize the implementation of a proposed 3,538 km fuel break network…
Economic Impacts of Fire, Fuels and Fuel Treatments, Risk Assessment and Analysis, Social and Community Impacts of Fire
Publication Type: Journal Article
Modeling Wildland Firefighters’ Assessments of Structure Defensibility
Year: 2023
In wildland–urban interface areas, firefighters balance wildfire suppression and structure protection. These tasks are often performed under resource limitations, especially when many structures are at risk. To address this problem, wildland firefighters employ a process called “structure triage” to prioritize structure protection based on perceived defensibility. Using a dataset containing triage assessments of thousands of structures within the Western US, we developed a machine learning model that can improve the understanding of factors contributing to assessed structure defensibility.…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Performance of Fire Danger Indices and Their Utility in Predicting Future Wildfire Danger Over the Conterminous United States
Year: 2023
Predicting current and future wildfire frequency and size is central to wildfire control and management. Multiple fire danger indices (FDIs) that incorporate weather and fuel conditions have been developed and utilized to support wildfire predictions and risk assessment. However, the scale-dependent performance of individual FDIs remains poorly understood, which leads to large uncertainty in the estimated fire sizes under climate change. Here, we calculate four commonly used FDIs over the conterminous United States using high-resolution (4 km) climate and fuel data sets for the 1984–2019…
Publication Type: Journal Article