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Research Database

Displaying 41 - 60 of 184

Landsat assessment of variable spectral recovery linked to post-fire forest structure in dry sub-boreal forests

Year: 2024
Forest disturbances such as wildfires can dramatically alter forest structure and composition, increasing the likelihood of ecosystem changes. Up-to-date and accurate measures of post-disturbance forest recovery in managed forests are critical, particularly for silvicultural planning. Measuring the live and dead vegetation post-fire is challenging because areas impacted by wildfire may be remote, difficult to access, and/or dangerous to survey. The difficulties of post-fire monitoring are compounded by the global increase in the frequency and severity of disturbances, as expansion of…
Risk Assessment and Analysis
remote sensing, disturbance, post-fire
Publication Type: Journal Article

‘Mind the Gap’—reforestation needs vs. reforestation capacity in the western United States

Year: 2024
Tree establishment following severe or stand-replacing disturbance is critical for achieving U.S. climate change mitigation goals and for maintaining the co-benefits of intact forest ecosystems. In many contexts, natural post-fire tree regeneration is sufficient to maintain forest cover and associated ecosystem services, but increasingly the pattern and scale of disturbance exceeds ecological thresholds and active reforestation may be warranted. Our capacity to plant trees, however, is not keeping pace with reforestation needs. This shortfall is uniquely apparent in the western U.S., where…
Restoration and Hazardous Fuel Reduction
post-fire, resilience
Publication Type: Journal Article

Trees have similar growth responses to first-entry fires and reburns following long-term fire exclusion

Year: 2024
Managing fire ignitions for resource benefit decreases fuel loads and reduces the risk of high-severity fire in fire-suppressed dry conifer forests. However, the reintroduction of low-severity wildfire can injure trees, which may decrease their growth after fire. Post-fire growth responses could change from first-entry fires to reburns, as first-entry fires reduce fuel loads and the vulnerability among trees to fire effects, which may result in trees sustaining less damage during reburns. To determine whether trees had growth responses that varied from first-entry fires to reburns, we cored…
Fire Effects and Fire Ecology, Fuels and Fuel Treatments
fire severity, wildland fire, post-fire
Publication Type: Journal Article

Pre-contact Indigenous fire stewardship: a research framework and application to a Pacific Northwest temperate rainforest

Year: 2024
Fire is a key disturbance process that shapes the structure and function of montane temperate rainforest in the Pacific Northwest (PNW). Recent research is revealing more frequent historical fire activity in the western central Cascades than expected by conventional theory. Indigenous peoples have lived in the PNW for millennia. However, Indigenous people's roles in shaping vegetation mosaics in montane temperate forests of the PNW has been overlooked, despite archaeological evidence of long-term, continuous human use of these landscapes. In this paper, we present a generalizable research…
Fire History, Fuels and Fuel Treatments
indigenous fire stewardship, fire regimes
Publication Type: Journal Article

Before the fire: predicting burn severity and potential post-fire debris-flow hazards to conservation populations of the Colorado River Cutthroat Trout (Oncorhynchus clarkii pleuriticus)

Year: 2024
Background: Colorado River Cutthroat Trout (CRCT; Oncorhynchus clarkii pleuriticus) conservation populations may be at risk from wildfire and post-fire debris flows hazards. Aim: To predict burn severity and potential post-fire debris flow hazard classifications to CRCT conservation populations before wildfires occur. Methods: We used remote sensing, spatial analyses, and machine learning to model 28 wildfire incidents (2016–2020) and spatially predict burn severity from pre-wildfire environmental factors to evaluate the likelihood…
Fire Effects and Fire Ecology, Soils and Woody Debris
post-fire, wildfire and water, wildlife, fire severity, remote sensing
Publication Type: Journal Article

Fire severity drives understory community dynamics and the recovery of culturally significant plants

Year: 2024
Anthropogenic influences are altering fire regimes worldwide, resulting in an increase in the size and severity of wildfires. Simultaneously, throughout western North America, there is increasing recognition of the important role of Indigenous fire stewardship in shaping historical fire regimes and fire-adapted ecosystems. However, there is limited understanding of how ecosystems are affected by or recover from contemporary “megafires,” particularly in terms of understory plant communities that are critical to both biodiversity and Indigenous cultures. To address this gap, our collaborative…
Fire Effects and Fire Ecology
fire severity, forest understory, post-fire
Publication Type: Journal Article

Prescribed fire increases forage mineral content in grazed rangeland

Year: 2024
BackgroundSustainable rangeland management balances production and conservation. While a broad literature describes the conservation benefits of prescribed fire, benefits for livestock production have emerged more slowly. Mineral nutrition is important for livestock health and performance, but the impact of prescribed fire on mineral concentration of forages, especially in the northern US Great Plains, remains unknown.AimsWe investigated how burning affects the mineral concentration of forage early and late in the growing season.MethodsData…
Fire and Rangelands, Prescribed Burning
post-fire
Publication Type: Journal Article

Montane springs provide regeneration refugia after high-severity wildfire

Year: 2024
In the mountainous regions of the Western United States, increasing wildfire activity and climate change are putting forests at risk of regeneration failure and conversion to non-forests. During periods with unfavorable climatic conditions, locations that are suitable for post-fire tree regeneration (regeneration refugia) may be essential for forest recovery. These refugia could provide scattered islands of recovering forest from which broader forest recovery may be facilitated. Spring ecosystems provide cool and wet microsites relative to the surrounding landscape and may act as regeneration…
Fire Effects and Fire Ecology, Mixed-Conifer Management
regeneration, disturbance, post-fire, fire severity
Publication Type: Journal Article

Historical pyrodiversity in Douglas-fir forests of the southern Cascades of Oregon, USA

Year: 2024
Our understanding of forest dynamics and successional pathways in coastal Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii var menziesii) forests with relatively frequent mixed-severity fires is limited by a lack of annually precise dendroecological reconstructions that combine records of historical fires and tree establishment. The processes by which old-forest heterogeneity developed under historical fire regimes with recurrent low- and moderate-severity fires has not been well studied at fine temporal scales and across spatial scales. We developed crossdated multi-century records of fire and…
Fire Effects and Fire Ecology, Fire History, Prescribed Burning
indigenous fire stewardship, fire regimes
Publication Type: Journal Article

Climate limits vegetation green-up more than slope, soil erodibility, and immediate precipitation following high-severity wildfire

Year: 2024
BackgroundIn the southwestern United States, post-fire vegetation recovery is increasingly variable in forest burned at high severity. Many factors, including temperature, drought, and erosion, can reduce post-fire vegetation recovery rates. Here, we examined how year-of-fire precipitation variability, topography, and soils influenced post-fire vegetation recovery in the southwestern United States as measured by greenness to determine whether erosion-related factors would have persistent effects in the longer post-fire period. We modeled relationships between post-fire vegetation and these…
Climate Change and Fire, Fire Effects and Fire Ecology, Soils and Woody Debris
post-fire, fire severity
Publication Type: Journal Article

Parcel-Level Risk Affects Wildfire Outcomes: Insights from Pre-Fire Rapid Assessment Data for Homes Destroyed in 2020 East Troublesome Fire

Year: 2024
Parcel-level risk (PLR) describes how wildfire risk varies from home to home based on characteristics that relate to likely fire behavior, the susceptibility of homes to fire, and the ability of firefighters to safely access properties. Here, we describe the WiRē Rapid Assessment (RA), a parcel-level rapid wildfire risk assessment tool designed to evaluate PLR with a small set of measures for all homes in a community. We investigate the relationship between 2019 WiRē RA data collected in the Columbine Lake community in Grand County, Colorado, and whether assessed homes were destroyed in the…
Communicating about Fire, Risk Assessment and Analysis, Social and Community Impacts of Fire
post-fire, mitigation
Publication Type: Journal Article

Indigenous pyrodiversity promotes plant diversity

Year: 2024
Pyrodiversity (temporally and spatially diverse fire histories) is thought to promote biodiversity by increasing environmental heterogeneity and replicating Indigenous fire regimes, yet studies of pyrodiversity-biodiversity relationships from areas under active Indigenous fire stewardship are rare. Here, we explored whether Indigenous pyrodiversity promoted plant richness and diversity in an arid ecosystem from north-western Australia. We selected landscapes that ranged from highly pyrodiverse and under active Indigenous burning to more coarse-scale and less diverse mosaics under lightning…
Fire Effects and Fire Ecology, Social and Community Impacts of Fire
indigenous fire stewardship, biodiversity, fire regimes
Publication Type: Journal Article

Quantifying Aspect-Dependent Snowpack Response to High-Elevation Wildfire in the Southern Rocky Mountains

Year: 2024
Increasing wildfire frequency and severity in high-elevation seasonal snow zones presents a considerable water resource management challenge across the western United States (U.S.). Wildfires can affect snowpack accumulation and melt patterns, altering the quantity and timing of runoff. While prior research has shown that wildfire generally increases snow melt rates and advances snow disappearance dates, uncertainties remain regarding variations across complex terrain and the energy balance between burned and unburned areas. Utilizing paired in situ data sources within the 2020 Cameron Peak…
Climate Change and Fire, Fire Effects and Fire Ecology
post-fire, wildfire and water
Publication Type: Journal Article

Western larch regeneration more sensitive to wildfire-related factors than seasonal climate variability

Year: 2024
To understand the impacts of changing climate and wildfire activity on conifer forests, we studied how wildfire and post-fire seasonal climate conditions influence western larch (Larix occidentalis) regeneration across its range in the northwestern US. We destructively sampled 1651 seedlings from 57 sites across 32 fires that burned at moderate or high severity between 2000 and 2015; sites were within 100 m of reproductively mature western larch. Using dendrochronological methods, we estimated germination years of seedlings to calculate annual recruitment rates. We used boosted…
Climate Change and Fire, Mixed-Conifer Management
post-fire, modeling
Publication Type: Journal Article

Characterizing post-fire delayed tree mortality with remote sensing: sizing up the elephant in the room

Year: 2024
BackgroundDespite recent advances in understanding the drivers of tree-level delayed mortality, we lack a method for mapping delayed mortality at landscape and regional scales. Consequently, the extent, magnitude, and effects of delayed mortality on post-fire landscape patterns of burn severity are unknown. We introduce a remote sensing approach for mapping delayed mortality based on post-fire decline in the normalized burn ratio (NBR). NBR decline is defined as the change in NBR between the first post-fire measurement and the minimum NBR value up to 5 years post-fire for each pixel…
Fire Effects and Fire Ecology
fire refugia, post-fire, tree mortality
Publication Type: Journal Article

Hydrometeorology-wildfire relationship analysis based on a wildfire bivariate probabilistic framework in different ecoregions of the continental United States

Year: 2024
Wildfires are a natural part of the ecosystem in the U.S.. It is vital to classify wildfires using a comprehensive approach that simultaneously considers wildfire activity (the number of wildfires) and burned area. On this basis, the influence of hydrometeorological variables on wildfires can be further analyzed. Therefore, this study first classified wildfire types using a wildfire bivariate probability framework. Then, by considering six hydrometeorological variables, the dominant hydrometeorological variables for different wildfire types in 17 ecoregions of the United States were…
Fire Effects and Fire Ecology
fire behavior, fire regimes, weather
Publication Type: Journal Article

Centering socioecological connections to collaboratively manage post- fire vegetation shifts

Year: 2024
Climate  change  is  altering  fire  regimes  and  post-fire  conditions,  contributing  to  relatively  rapid  transformation  of  landscapes  across  the  western  US.  Studies  are  increasingly  documenting  post-fire  vegetation  transitions,  particularly  from  forest  to  non-  forest conditions or from sagebrush to invasive annual grasses. The prevalence of climate-driven, post-fire vegetation transitions is likely to increase…
Climate Change and Fire, Fire Effects and Fire Ecology
post-fire, management
Publication Type: Journal Article

Patterns and drivers of early conifer regeneration following stand-replacing wildfire in Pacific Northwest (USA) temperate maritime forests

Year: 2023
Tree regeneration is a critical mechanism of forest resilience to stand-replacing wildfire (i.e., where fire results in >90 % tree mortality), and post-fire regeneration is a concern worldwide as the climate becomes warmer. Although post-fire tree regeneration has been relatively well-studied in fire-prone forests across western North America, it is less understood in fire regimes characterized by large patches of stand-replacing fire at long intervals, such as the nominally infrequent, high-severity fire regimes of the western Cascades of Washington and northern Oregon,…
Mixed-Conifer Management, Restoration and Hazardous Fuel Reduction
regeneration, post-fire
Publication Type: Journal Article

Changes in wildfire occurrence and risk to homes from 1990 through 2019 in the Southern Rocky Mountains, USA

Year: 2023
Wildfires and housing development have increased since the 1990s, presenting unique challenges for wildfire management. However, it is unclear how the relative influences of housing growth and changing wildfire occurrence have altered risk to homes, or the potential for wildfire to threaten homes. We used a random forests model to predict burn probability in relation to weather variables at 1-km resolution and monthly intervals from 1990 through 2019 in the Southern Rocky Mountains ecoregion. We quantified risk by combining the predicted burn probabilities with decadal housing density. We…
Fire History
fire regimes, mitigation, Wildland-urban interface (WUI)
Publication Type: Journal Article

How Does Fire Suppression Alter the Wildfire Regime? A Systematic Review

Year: 2023
Fire suppression has become a fundamental approach for shaping contemporary wildfire regimes. However, a growing body of research suggests that aggressive fire suppression can increase high-intensity wildfires, creating the wildfire paradox. Whether the strategy always triggers the paradox remains a topic of ongoing debate. The role of fire suppression in altering wildfire regimes in diverse socio-ecological systems and associated research designs demands a deeper understanding. To reconcile these controversies and synthesize the existing knowledge, a systematic review has been conducted to…
Fuels and Fuel Treatments
fire suppression, fire regimes, management
Publication Type: Journal Article