post-fire

Recent literature suggests that natural disasters such as wildfires often have the short-term effect of ‘‘bringing people together’’ while also under some circumstances generating social conflict at the local level. Conflict has been documented particularly when social relations are disembedded by nonlocal entities and there is a perceived loss of local agency.

We investigated the midterm effects of wildfire (in this case, five years after the fire) of varying severity on periphyton, benthic invertebrates, emerging adult aquatic insects, spiders, and bats by comparing unburned sites with those exposed to low severity (riparian vegetation burned but canopy intact) and high severity (canopy completely removed) wildfire.

Forest managers use prescribed fire to reduce wildfire risk and to provide resource benefits, yet little information is available on whether prescribed fires can function as ecological surrogates for wildfire in fire-prone landscapes. Information on impacts and benefits of this management tool on stream and riparian ecosystems is particularly lacking.

Antelope bitterbrush is a dominant shrub in many interior ponderosa pine forests in the western United States. How it responds to prescribed fire is not well understood, yet is of considerable concern to wildlife and fire managers alike given its importance as a browse species and as a ladder fuel in these fire-prone forests.

Northern spotted owls are known to spend time in areas burned by wildfire, but there has been little scientific investigation of how and why they use these landscapes.

In forests, high-severity burn patches — wherein most or all of the trees are killed by fire — often occur within a mosaic of low- and moderate-severity effects.

This report reviews the growing literature on the concept of agency-citizen interactions after large wildfires. Because large wildfires have historically occurred at irregular intervals, research from related fields has been reviewed where appropriate.