Skip to main content

fire suppression

Displaying 1 - 10 of 79

A Quantitative Analysis of Firefighter Availability and Prescribed Burning in the Okanogan–Wenatchee National Forest

Year of Publication
2025
Publication Type

Wildfire activity in the western United States has been on the rise since the mid-1980s, with longer, higher-risk fire seasons projected for the future. Prescribed burning mitigates the risk of extreme wildfire events, but such treatments are currently underutilized. Fire managers have cited lack of firefighter availability as a key barrier to prescribed burning.

Decreasing frequency of low and moderate fire weather days may be contributing to large wildfire occurrence in the northern Sierra Nevada

Year of Publication
2025
Publication Type

Previous analyses identified large-scale climatic patterns contributing to greater fuel aridity as drivers of recent dramatic increases in wildfire activity throughout California. This study revisits an approach to investigate more local fire weather patterns in the northern Sierra Nevada; a region within California that has experienced exceptionally high wildfire activity recently.

Wildland Firefighters Suffer Increasing Risk of Job-Related Death

Year of Publication
2025
Publication Type

Wildland firefighting is a niche specialization in the fire service - inherently dangerous with unique risks. Over the past decade, fatalities amongst all firefighters have decreased; however, wildland firefighter fatalities have increased. This subject has only been described in the grey literature, and a paucity of medical literature exists.

The 2023 wildfires in British Columbia, Canada: impacts, drivers, and transformations to coexist with wildfire

Year of Publication
2025
Publication Type

In 2023, all regions of British Columbia (BC) experienced record-breaking fire weather and wildfires, with extreme behavior and social-ecological effects. In total, 2245 wildfires burned 2840 545 hectares. Contemporary wildfires are the culmination of a century of altered human–forest–wildfire relationships, exacerbated by climate change.

Severity of a megafire reduced by interactions of wildland fire suppression operations and previous burns

Year of Publication
2024
Publication Type

Burned area and proportion of high severity fire have been increasing in the western USA, and reducing wildfire severity with fuel treatments or other means is key for maintaining fire-prone dry forests and avoiding fire-catalyzed forest loss. Despite the unprecedented scope of firefighting operations in recent years, their contribution to patterns of wildfire severity is rarely quantified.

The Efficacy of Red Flag Warnings in Mitigating Human-Caused Wildfires across the Western United States

Year of Publication
2024
Publication Type

Red flag warnings (RFWs) are issued by the U.S. National Weather Service to alert fire and emergency response agencies of weather conditions that are conducive to extreme wildfire growth. Distinct from most weather warnings that aim to reduce exposure to anticipated hazards, RFWs may also mitigate hazards by reducing the occurrence of new ignitions.