Context In the interior Northwest, debate over restoring mixed-conifer forests after a century of fire exclusion is hampered by poor understanding of the pattern and causes of spatial variation in historical fire regimes.
Across the western United States, the three primary drivers of tree mortality and carbon balance are bark beetles, timber harvest, and wildfire. While these agents of forest change frequently overlap, uncertainty remains regarding their interactions and influence on specific subsequent fire effects such as change in canopy cover.
National Forests in the dry forest provinces on the east‐side of the Oregon and Washington Cascades have been managed under the guidelines of local Forest Plans and the Northwest Forest Plan (NWFP), both of which specify large areas of late‐successional reserves (LSRs).
Early seral forest habitats are increasingly valued for the unique structural resources they provide in many western US forests. Coarse woody detritus (CWD) are a significant feature of this developmental stage and are highly dynamic, suggesting these environments exhibit temporally diverse structural conditions prior to forest canopy closure.
Previous studies have debated the flammability of young regenerating stands, especially those in a matrix of mature forest, and no consensus has emerged as to whether young stands are inherently prone to highseverity wildfire.