Research Database
Displaying 1 - 4 of 4
Exceptional variability in historical fire regimes across a western Cascades landscape, Oregon, USA
Year: 2023
Detailed information about the historical range of variability in wildfire activity informs adaptation to future climate and disturbance regimes. Here, we describe one of the first annually resolved reconstructions of historical (1500–1900 ce) fire occurrence in coast Douglas-fir dominated forests of the west slope of the Cascade Range in western Oregon. Mean fire return intervals (MFRIs) across 16 sites within our study area ranged from 6 to 165 years. Variability in MFRIs was strongly associated with average maximum summer vapor pressure deficit. Fire occurred infrequently in Douglas-fir…
Fire Effects and Fire Ecology, Fire History, Mixed-Conifer Management, Restoration and Hazardous Fuel Reduction
Publication Type: Journal Article
Wildfire activity in northern Rocky Mountain subalpine forests still within millennial-scale range of variability
Year: 2023
Increasing area burned across western North America raises questions about the precedence and magnitude of changes in fire activity, relative to the historical range of variability (HRV) that ecosystems experienced over recent centuries and millennia. Paleoecological records of past fire occurrence provide context for contemporary changes in ecosystems characterized by infrequent, high-severity fire regimes. Here we present a network of 12 fire-history records derived from macroscopic charcoal preserved in sediments of small subalpine lakes within a c. 10 000 km2 landscape in the U.S.…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Did the 2002 Hayman Fire, Colorado, USA, Burn with Uncharacteristic Severity?
Year: 2016
There is considerable interest in evaluating whether recent wildfires in dry conifer forests of western North America are burning with uncharacteristic severity—that is, with a severity outside the historical range of variability. In 2002, the Hayman Fire burned an unlogged 3400 ha dry conifer forest landscape in the Colorado Front Range, USA, that had been the subject of previous fire history and forest age structure research. We opportunistically leveraged pre-existing data from this research, in combination with post-fire aerial imagery, to provide insight into whether the Hayman Fire’s…
Publication Type: Journal Article
REVIEW: Searching for resilience: addressing the impacts of changing disturbance regimes on forest ecosystem services
Year: 2016
The provisioning of ecosystem services to society is increasingly under pressure from global change. Changing disturbance regimes are of particular concern in this context due to their high potential impact on ecosystem structure, function and composition. Resilience-based stewardship is advocated to address these changes in ecosystem management, but its operational implementation has remained challenging. We review observed and expected changes in disturbance regimes and their potential impacts on provisioning, regulating, cultural and supporting ecosystem services, concentrating on…
Publication Type: Journal Article