Federal fire management plans are essential implementation guides for the management of wildland fire on federal lands. Recent changes in federal fire policy implementation guidance and fire science information suggest the need for substantial changes in federal fire management plans of the United States.

Forest fires importantly influence our environment and lives. The ability of accurately predicting the area that may be involved in a forest fire event may help in optimizing fire management efforts. Given the complexity of the task, powerful computational tools are needed for predicting the amount of area that will be burned during a forest fire.

The probability of stem survival after fire is strongly influenced by energy allocation to bark because bark thickness affects heat transfer during fire. Greater relative investment in inner bark versus outer bark should also enhance survival because of greater moisture content of inner bark.

Together with other stressors, interactions between fire and climate change are expressing their potential to drive ecosystem shifts and losses in biodiversity. Closely linked to human well-being in most regions of the globe, fires and their consequences should no longer be regarded as repeated surprise events.

The decrease in fire activity has been recognized as a main cause of expansion of North American woodlands. Piñon-juniper habitat in the western United States has expanded in area nearly 10-fold since the late 1800s. Woodland control measures using chainsaws, heavy equipment, and prescribed fire are used to restore sagebrush steppe plant communities.

Forest fires have been the bane of forest managers, resource analysts, and the public ever since the timberlands of the Great Lakes area and the western mountains were opened for exploitation or designated for preservation.

The interaction of fires, where one fire burns into another recently burned area, is receiving increased attention from scientists and land managers wishing to describe the role of fire scars in affecting landscape pattern and future fire spread.

Understory shrubs play important ecological roles in forests of the western US, but they can also impede early tree growth and lead to fire hazard concerns when very dense. Some of the more common genera (Ceanothus, Arctostaphylos, and Prunus) persist for long periods in the seed bank, even in areas where plants have been shaded out.

Smoke exposure is often an inevitable side effect of open vegetation fires (both planned and wild) and is an important public health concern.

Reference ecological conditions offer important context for land managers as they assess the condition of their landscapes and provide benchmarks for desired future conditions. State-and-transition simulation models (STSMs) are commonly used to estimate reference conditions that can be used to evaluate current ecosystem conditions and to guide land management decisions and activities.