This study investigates the key drivers influencing prescribed fire effects across 16 sites in northern and central California, with particular emphasis on how operational decisions by fire practitioners shape burn outcomes.
Restoring fire in fire-adapted ecosystems is necessary to curtail woody plant expansion, enhance biodiversity, and reduce wildfire risks, yet prescribed fire is promoted less by federal agencies than other grassland conservation practices. The U.S.
Changes in wildfire regimes may disrupt ecosystem processes as wildfires burn larger areas or burn more frequently than the recent natural range of variability. The climatic drivers of wildfire behavior may change in strength, but these effects are not likely to be uniform across space and different vegetation types.
Widespread impacts of landscape fire on ecosystems, societies, and the climate system itself have heightened the need to understand the potential future trajectory of fire under continued climate change. However, the complexity of fire makes climate change impact assessment challenging.
Multi-stakeholder planning and prioritization for ecosystem management and wildfire risk mitigation are complicated by the need to balance a multitude of values, goals, viewpoints, and interests across large landscapes.
The wildland fire management system is increasingly complex and uncertain, which challenges suppression actions and increases stress on an already strained system. Researchers and managers have called for the use of strategic, risk-informed decision making and decision support tools (DSTs) in wildfire management to manage complexity and mitigate uncertainty.
Mature and old-growth forests (MOG) provide essential ecosystem services, yet they face increasing threats. Currently, high-intensity, high-severity wildfires are the main driver for loss of MOG on federally managed forests across the United States. Quantifying MOG forests with greatest exposure to stand-replacing wildfires provides essential information for land managers.
Wildfires are increasingly affecting people’s lives in the Pacific Northwest. Latine populations, in particular, often face unique challenges in their recovery process. This study examines individual Latine wildfire recovery experiences to understand the strengths and barriers in the community’s post-fire recovery process in two wildfire-affected areas in Oregon and Washington.
Concepts and models of fire refugia are increasingly important components of forest management and adaptation discussions in the context of wildland fire, forest and habitat conservation, and global change.