Dry conifer forests in the western US historically experienced frequent fire prior to European American colonization. Mean fire return interval ranged from about 5–35 years, with the majority of fires burning at low-to-moderate severity.
Wildfires and fire seasons are commonly rated largely on the simple metric of area burned (more hectares: bad). A seemingly paradoxical narrative frames large fire seasons as a symptom of a forest health problem (too much fire), while simultaneously stating that fire-dependent forests lack sufficient fire to maintain system resilience (too little fire).
The North Bay area of California is a populous and ecologically diverse area that has experienced significant changes in the past century, as well as a series of recent wildfires, after over a century of fire suppression practices.
Background: Fire research and management applications, such as fire behaviour analysis and emissions modelling, require consistent, highly resolved spatiotemporal information on wildfire growth progression.
Wildfires and housing development have increased since the 1990s, presenting unique challenges for wildfire management. However, it is unclear how the relative influences of housing growth and changing wildfire occurrence have altered risk to homes, or the potential for wildfire to threaten homes.
In the U.S., federal, tribal, state, local, and private land management entities seek to implement a wildfire management strategy that spans large spatial extents and multiple ownerships to achieve wildfire risk reduction and forest restoration. This strategy requires cross-boundary cooperation.
The postglacial history of vegetation, wildfire, and climate in the Cascade Range (Oregon) is only partly understood. This study uses high-resolution macroscopic charcoal and pollen analysis from a 13-m, 14,500 years sediment record from Gold Lake, located in a montane forest, to reconstruct forest vegetation and fire history.
Prior research suggests that Indigenous fire management buffers climate influences on wildfires, but it is unclear whether these benefits accrue across geographic scales.
Warning: This article contains terms, descriptions, and opinions used for historical context that may be culturally sensitive for some readers. Background: Understanding drivers of boreal forest dynamics supports adaptation strategies in the context of climate change. Aims: We aimed to understand how burn rates varied since the early 1700s in North American boreal forests.
Background: Remotely sensed burned area products are critical to support fire modelling, policy, and management but often require further processing before use. Aim: We calculated fire history metrics from the Landsat Burned Area Product (1984–2020) across the conterminous U.S.