Topic: Fire Effects and Fire Ecology

Background: Prescribed burning is an effective tool for reducing fuels in many forest types, yet there have been few opportunities to study forest resilience to wildfire in areas previously treated. In 2020, a large-scale high-intensity wildfire burned through an old-growth coast redwood (…

Wildfires are growing in destructive power, and accurately predicting the spread and intensity of wildland fire is essential for managing ecological and societal impacts. No current operational models used for fire behavior prediction resolve critical fire-atmospheric coupling or nonlocal…

Background: In response to increasing risk of extreme wildfire across western North America, forest managers are proactively implementing fuel treatments.

Aims: We assessed the efficacy of alternative combinations of thinning, pruning and residue fuel…

Background: Suppression effectiveness is often evaluated by measuring the extent to which it slows fire spread and reduces fireline intensity. Although studies have used infrared (IR) imaging methods to explore suppression effectiveness, most do not measure or assess the…

Small-scale variation in wildfire behavior may cause large differences in belowground bacterial and fungal communities with consequences for belowground microbial diversity, community assembly, and function. Here we combine pre-fire, active-fire, and post-wildfire measurements in a mixed-conifer…

Rapid increases in wildfire area burned across North American forests pose novel challenges for managers and society. Increasing area burned raises questions about whether, and to what degree, contemporary fire regimes (1984–2022) are still departed from historical fire regimes (pre-1880). We…

Background: The increased interest in why and how trees die from fire has led to several syntheses of the potential mechanisms of fire-induced tree mortality. However, these generally neglect to consider experimental methods used to simulate fire behaviour conditions.

Aims: To describe,…

Purpose of Review

The behaviour of wildland fires, namely their free spreading nature, destructive energy fluxes and hazardous environment, make it a phenomenon difficult to study. Field experimental studies and occasional wildfire observations underpin our understanding…

Canada has experienced more-intense and longer fire seasons with more-frequent uncontrollable wildfires over the past decades. However, the effect of these changes remains unknown. This study identifies driving forces of burn severity and estimates its spatiotemporal variations in Canadian…

Burned area and proportion of high severity fire have been increasing in the western USA, and reducing wildfire severity with fuel treatments or other means is key for maintaining fire-prone dry forests and avoiding fire-catalyzed forest loss. Despite the unprecedented scope of firefighting…