Research Database
Displaying 1 - 20 of 24
Bridging scales for landscape-level wildfire adaptation: A case study of the Kittitas Fire Adapted Communities Coalition
Year: 2024
Federal-level strategies or guidance for addressing wildfire risk encourage adaptation activities that span progressively larger scales, often focusing on landscape-level action that necessitates coordination between decision-makers and socially diverse communities. Collaborative organizations are increasingly explored as one approach for coordinating local efforts that address wildfire risk and adaptation, offering a platform for scaling and adjusting federal and state guidance that align with the needs of local landscapes. We conducted semi-structured interviews with members and supporters…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Boundary spanners catalyze cultural and prescribed fire in western Canada
Year: 2024
Western Canada is increasingly experiencing impactful and complex wildfire seasons. In response, there are urgent calls to implement prescribed and cultural fire as a key solution to this complex challenge. Unfortunately, there has been limited investment in individuals and organizations that can navigate this complexity and work to implement collaborative solutions across physical, cognitive, and social boundaries. In the wildfire context, these boundaries manifest as jurisdictional silos, a lack of respect for certain forms of knowledge, and a disconnect between knowledge and practice. Here…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Exploring support and opposition to regulatory approaches for wildfire risk management: requirements, voluntary actions, and tailored local action
Year: 2024
Formal requirements of wildfire mitigation on private properties are increasingly being considered as one avenue for “scaling up” wildfire management and voluntary mitigation actions to landscape scales. Likewise, enduring segments of wildfire research suggest that residents’ perceptions about potential wildfire risk sources in their landscape, including ignition sources, are critical considerations related to support for mitigation efforts such as formal requirements or cross-boundary fuel reduction initiatives. The research presented in this article utilized mixed-method, residential…
Public Perceptions of Fire and Smoke, Risk Assessment and Analysis, Social and Community Impacts of Fire
Publication Type: Journal Article
Wildfire narratives: Identifying and characterizing multiple understandings of western wildfire challenges
Year: 2024
Western wildfires present a complex sustainability challenge characterized by more severe fires and escalating risks. To mitigate western wildfire risks, collaborative management practices need to transform the processes involved in knowledge production, seizing the opportunities and overcoming obstacles associated with actors’ multiple understandings. Knowledge co-production represents an increasingly referenced process for bringing together diverse actors, including scientists from different disciplines and non-scientists, to construct place-based and action-oriented knowledge. While…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Research on Wildfires, Soil Erosion and Land Degradation in the XXI Century
Year: 2024
This study carries out a comprehensive bibliometric analysis of scientific production on wildfires, soil erosion and land degradation, with the aim of understanding trends, critical gaps in scientific knowledge and research patterns. A total of 1400 articles published between 2001 and 2023 were analyzed with bibliometric tools (Bibliometrix and VOSviewer), revealing a steady growth in the number of publications over time. International collaboration between countries such as the United States, Spain, China and Portugal is evident, highlighting the global approach to tackling these issues, as…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Developing reliable and valid measures for evaluating collaborative governance and adaptability: An example from the Collaborative Forest Landscape Restoration Program
Year: 2024
In recent decades, there has been an increased emphasis on, and application of, collaborative and adaptive forms of environmental governance as a means to address complex social-ecological problems that cannot be achieved alone and support sustainable resource management. However, the majority of research in the collaborative governance and adaptability arena has relied on individual or small-n case studies. This has led to a multitude of definitions, indicators, and indices, which limits our ability to make inferences across cases and contexts. Relatedly, most research lacks formal tests of…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Coexisting with wildfire: strengthening collective capacity by changing the status quo
Year: 2024
This article is the fuller written version of the invited closing plenary given by the author at the 10th International Fire Ecology and Management Congress. The article provides a consideration of our capacity to cope, care, and coexist in a fiery world from a social and structural point of view. It focuses on privilege as the root cause of a long and troublesome history within the wildfire profession of not valuing all generational knowledge equally, not treating all cultures with the same respect, not embracing diversity and inclusion, and not affording the same status to all…
Publication Type: Conference Proceedings
Landsat assessment of variable spectral recovery linked to post-fire forest structure in dry sub-boreal forests
Year: 2024
Forest disturbances such as wildfires can dramatically alter forest structure and composition, increasing the likelihood of ecosystem changes. Up-to-date and accurate measures of post-disturbance forest recovery in managed forests are critical, particularly for silvicultural planning. Measuring the live and dead vegetation post-fire is challenging because areas impacted by wildfire may be remote, difficult to access, and/or dangerous to survey. The difficulties of post-fire monitoring are compounded by the global increase in the frequency and severity of disturbances, as expansion of…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Global variation in ecoregion flammability thresholds
Year: 2024
Anthropogenic climate change is altering the state of worldwide fire regimes, including by increasing the number of days per year when vegetation is dry enough to burn. Indices representing the percent moisture content of dead fine fuels as derived from meteorological data have been used to assess geographic patterns and temporal trends in vegetation flammability. To date, this approach has assumed a single flammability threshold, typically between 8 and 12%, controlling fire potential regardless of the vegetation type or climate domain. Here we use remotely sensed burnt area products and a…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Remote sensing applications for prescribed burn research
Year: 2024
Prescribed burning is a key management strategy within fire-adapted systems, and improved monitoring approaches are needed to evaluate its effectiveness in achieving social-ecological outcomes. Remote sensing provides opportunities to analyse the impacts of prescribed burning, yet a comprehensive understanding of the applications of remote sensing for prescribed burn research is lacking. We conduct a literature review of 120 peer-reviewed publications to synthesise the research aims, methodologies, limitations and future directions of remote sensing for the analysis of prescribed fire.…
Publication Type: Journal Article
A fast spectral recovery does not necessarily indicate post-fire forest recovery
Year: 2024
BackgroundClimate change has increased wildfire activity in the western USA and limited the capacity for forests to recover post-fire, especially in areas burned at high severity. Land managers urgently need a better understanding of the spatiotemporal variability in natural post-fire forest recovery to plan and implement active recovery projects. In burned areas, post-fire “spectral recovery”, determined by examining the trajectory of multispectral indices (e.g., normalized burn ratio) over time, generally corresponds with recovery of multiple post-fire vegetation types, including trees and…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Snow-cover remote sensing of conifer tree recovery in high-severity burn patches
Year: 2024
The number of large, high-severity wildfires has been increasing across the western United States over the last several decades. It is not fully understood how changes in the frequency of large, severe wildfires may impact the resilience of conifer forests, due to alterations in regeneration success or failure. Our research investigates 30 years of conifer recovery patterns within 34 high-severity wildfire complexes (1988–1991) of the Northern Rocky Mountains. We evaluate the capability of snow-cover Landsat to characterize conifer tree recolonization of high-severity burn patches. Snow-…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Optimising disaster response: opportunities and challenges with Uncrewed Aircraft System (UAS) technology in response to the 2020 Labour Day wildfires in Oregon, USA
Year: 2024
BackgroundThe expanding use of Uncrewed Aircraft System (UAS) technology in disaster response shows its immense potential to enhance emergency management. However, there is limited documentation on the challenges and data management procedures related to UAS operation.AimsThis manuscript documents and analyses the operational, technical, political, and social challenges encountered during the deployment of UAS, providing insights into the complexities of using these technologies in disaster situations.MethodsThis manuscript documents and…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Carbon emissions from the 2023 Canadian wildfires
Year: 2024
The 2023 Canadian forest fires have been extreme in scale and intensity with more than seven times the average annual area burned compared to the previous four decades. Here, we quantify the carbon emissions from these fires from May to September 2023 on the basis of inverse modelling of satellite carbon monoxide observations. We find that the magnitude of the carbon emissions is 647 TgC (570–727 TgC), comparable to the annual fossil fuel emissions of large nations, with only India, China and the USA releasing more carbon per year. We find that widespread hot–dry weather was a principal…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Biogeographic patterns of daily wildfire spread and extremes across North America
Year: 2024
Introduction: Climate change is predicted to increase the frequency of extreme single-day fire spread events, with major ecological and social implications. In contrast with well-documented spatio-temporal patterns of wildfire ignitions and perimeters, daily progression remains poorly understood across continental spatial scales, particularly for extreme single-day events (“blow ups”). Here, we characterize daily wildfire spread across North America, including occurrence of extreme single-day events, duration and seasonality of fire and extremes, and ecoregional climatic…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Visibility-informed mapping of potential firefighter lookout locations using maximum entropy modelling
Year: 2024
BackgroundSituational awareness is an essential component of wildland firefighter safety. In the US, crew lookouts provide situational awareness by proxy from ground-level locations with visibility of both fire and crew members.AimsTo use machine learning to predict potential lookout locations based on incident data, mapped visibility, topography, vegetation, and roads.MethodsLidar-derived topographic and fuel structural variables were used to generate maps of visibility across 30 study areas that possessed lookout location data. Visibility…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Leveraging the next generation of spaceborne Earth observations for fuel monitoring and wildland fire management
Year: 2024
Managing fuels is a key strategy for mitigating the negative impacts of wildfires on people and the environment. The use of satellite-based Earth observation data has become an important tool for managers to optimize fuel treatment planning at regional scales. Fortunately, several new sensors have been launched in the last few years, providing novel opportunities to enhance fuel characterization. Herein, we summarize the potential improvements in fuel characterization at large scale (i.e., hundreds to thousands of km2) with high spatial and spectral resolution arising from the use of new…
Publication Type: Journal Article
The fastest-growing and most destructive fires in the US (2001 to 2020)
Year: 2024
The most destructive and deadly wildfires in US history were also fast. Using satellite data, we analyzed the daily growth rates of more than 60,000 fires from 2001 to 2020 across the contiguous US. Nearly half of the ecoregions experienced destructive fast fires that grew more than 1620 hectares in 1 day. These fires accounted for 78% of structures destroyed and 61% of suppression costs ($18.9 billion). From 2001 to 2020, the average peak daily growth rate for these fires more than doubled (+249% relative to 2001) in the Western US. Nearly 3 million structures were within 4 kilometers of a…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Exploring the use of satellite Earth observation active wildland fire hotspot data via open access web platforms
Year: 2024
Globally, managing wildland fire is increasing in complexity. Satellite Earth Observation (EO) data, specifically active fire ‘hotspot’ data, is often used to inform wildland fire management. This study explores hotspot data usage via web traffic data (‘user counts’) for the FIRMS, GWIS and EFFIS web portals between September 2019 and April 2023. Global active fire data use is characterized by multi-month periods of relatively low, stable user counts, interspersed with periodic spikes (4.1x median monthly activity) of activity broadly aligned with the North American / European fire season (…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Pixels to pyrometrics: UAS-derived infrared imagery to evaluate and monitor prescribed fire behaviour and effects
Year: 2024
Background: Prescribed fire is vital for fuel reduction and ecological restoration, but the effectiveness and fine-scale interactions are poorly understood. Aims: We developed methods for processing uncrewed aircraft systems (UAS) imagery into spatially explicit pyrometrics, including measurements of fuel consumption, rate of spread, and residence time to quantitatively measure three prescribed fires. Methods: We collected infrared (IR) imagery continuously (0.2 Hz) over prescribed burns and one experimental calibration burn, capturing…
Publication Type: Journal Article