Large and severe wildfires are an observable consequence of an increasingly arid American West. There is increasing consensus that human communities, land managers, and fire managers need to adapt and learn to live with wildfires.

Wildfires underpin the dynamics and diversity of many ecosystems worldwide, and plants show a plethora of adaptive traits for persisting recurrent fires. Many fire-prone ecosystems also harbor a rich fauna; however, knowledge about adaptive traits to fire in animals remains poorly explored.

Wildfires pose a serious threat to life in many countries. For police, fire and emergency services authorities in most jurisdictions in North America and Australia evacuation is now the option that is preferred overwhelmingly. Wildfire evacuation modeling can assist authorities in planning evacuation responses to future threats.

Landscape science relies on foundational concepts of landscape ecology and seeks to understand the physical, biological, and human components of ecosystems to support land management decision-making. Incorporating landscape science into land management decisions, however, remains challenging.

Context Fire regimes in many dry forests of western North America are substantially different from historical conditions, and there is concern about the ability of these forests to recover following severe wildfire. Fire refugia, unburned or low-severity burned patches where trees survived fire, may serve as essential propagule sources that enable forest regeneration.

Wildfires in the Pacific Northwest (Washington, Oregon, Idaho, and western Montana, USA) have been immense in recent years, capturing the attention of resource managers, fire scientists, and the general public.

Native Americans rely on tribally important ecosystem services such as traditional foods, hunting, timber production, non-timber forest resources (recreation, water), and cultural resources. Unfortunately, many of these resources may be highly vulnerable to the impacts of climate change.

Joint Fire Science Program (JFSP) project 09-S-03-1 was undertaken in response to JFSP Project Announcement No. FA-RFA09-0002 with respect to a synthesis on extreme fire behavior or more specifically a review and analysis of the literature dealing with certain features of crown fire behavior in conifer forests in the United States and adjacent regions of Canada.

In increasing numbers, agency personnel, interest groups, and residents of at-risk communities are coming together to consider wildfire problems and taking steps to solve them. Particularly with regard to fire management, trust among parties is an essential element to successful local programs (Olsen & Shindler 2010, Lachapelle & McCool 2012).

Record blazes swept across parts of the US in 2015, burning more than 10 million acres. The four biggest fire seasons since 1960 have all occurred in the last 10 years, leading to fears of a ‘new normal’ for wildfire. Fire fighters and forest managers are overwhelmed, and it is clear that the policy and management approaches of the past will not suffice under this new era of western wildfires.