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Untrammeling the wilderness: restoring natural conditions through the return of human-ignited fire

Year: 2024
Historical and contemporary policies and practices, including the suppression of lightning-ignited fires and the removal of intentional fires ignited by Indigenous peoples, have resulted in over a century of fire exclusion across many of the USA’s landscapes. Within many designated wilderness areas, this intentional exclusion of fire has clearly altered ecological processes and thus constitutes a fundamental and ubiquitous act of trammeling. Through a framework that recognizes four orders of trammeling, we demonstrate the substantial, long-term, and negative effects of fire…
Fire Effects and Fire Ecology, Fire History, Restoration and Hazardous Fuel Reduction
wilderness fire, fire exclusion, Indigenous fire stewardship, fire-adapted ecosystems
Publication Type: Journal Article

Restoring frequent fire to dry conifer forests delays the decline of subalpine forests in the southwest United States under projected climate

Year: 2024
  1. In southwestern US forests, the combined impact of climate change and increased fuel loads due to more than a century of human-caused fire exclusion is leading to larger and more severe wildfires. Restoring frequent fire to dry conifer forests can mitigate high-severity fire risk, but the effects of these treatments on the vegetation composition and structure under projected climate change remain uncertain.
  2. We used a forest landscape model to assess the impact of thinning and prescribed burns in dry conifer forests across an elevation gradient, encompassing low-elevation…
Fire Effects and Fire Ecology, Fire History, Prescribed Burning, Restoration and Hazardous Fuel Reduction
dry coniferous forests, subalpine conifer forest, Elevation, modelling, prescribed burning
Publication Type: Journal Article