Research Database
Displaying 1 - 20 of 157
Wildland fire entrainment: The missing link between wildland fire and its environment
Year: 2025
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 influences of the fire environment, rendering them inadequate in accounting for the range of wildland fire behavior scenarios under increasingly novel fuel and climate conditions. Here, we present a new perspective on a dominant fire-atmospheric feedback mechanism, which we term wildland fire entrainment (…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Equity in resilience: a case study of community resilience to wildfire in southwestern Oregon, United States
Year: 2025
In the fire-prone and fire-adapted landscape of the Rogue River Basin of southwestern Oregon, communities mobilize to prepare, respond, and recover from wildfire while modifying the current social and ecological system. Marginalized communities are often most affected and least prepared for disturbances of this kind, where racism, colonialism, and structural equities prevent meaningful inclusion and equitable allocation of resources. This research centers these voices in an empirical study of the situated resilience of the Rogue River Basin, rooted in the work of community-based organizations…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Global Synthesis of Quantification of Fire Behaviour Characteristics in Forests and Shrublands: Recent Progress
Year: 2025
Purpose of ReviewThe 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 of fire behaviour. We aim to present a global synthesis of field-based studies in forest and shrublands fuel types published since 2003 with a focus on the most commonly measured fire behaviour attributes, namely rate of fire spread, ignition and spread sustainability, flame characteristics, fuel consumption…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Short-term impacts of operational fuel treatments on modelled fire behaviour and effects in seasonally dry forests of British Columbia, Canada
Year: 2025
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 management to mitigate potential fire behaviour and effects in seasonally dry forests of interior British Columbia, Canada.Methods: Across five community forests, we measured stand attributes before and after fuel treatments in 2021 and 2022, then modelled fire behaviour and effects using the…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Long-term influence of prescribed burning on subsequent wildfire in an old-growth coast redwood forest
Year: 2025
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 (Sequoia sempervirens) forest with a mixed land management history, providing a rare opportunity to compare early post-wildfire data between areas with and without previous application of prescribed burning. The purpose of this study was to analyze the differences between these two treatments in…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Prescribed fire, managed burning, and previous wildfires reduce the severity of a southwestern US gigafire
Year: 2025
In many parts of the western United States, wildfires are becoming larger and more severe, threatening the persistence of forest ecosystems. Understanding the ways in which management activities such as prescribed fire and managed wildfire can mitigate fire severity is essential for developing effective forest conservation strategies. We evaluated the effects of previous fuels reduction treatments, including prescribed fire and wildfire managed for resource benefit, and other wildfires on the burn severity of the 2022 Black Fire in southwestern New Mexico, USA. The Black Fire burned over 131,…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Prescribed fire, managed burning, and previous wildfires reduce the severity of a southwestern US gigafire
Year: 2025
In many parts of the western United States, wildfires are becoming larger and more severe, threatening the persistence of forest ecosystems. Understanding the ways in which management activities such as prescribed fire and managed wildfire can mitigate fire severity is essential for developing effective forest conservation strategies. We evaluated the effects of previous fuels reduction treatments, including prescribed fire and wildfire managed for resource benefit, and other wildfires on the burn severity of the 2022 Black Fire in southwestern New Mexico, USA. The Black Fire burned over 131,…
Publication Type: Journal Article
The 2023 wildfires in British Columbia, Canada: impacts, drivers, and transformations to coexist with wildfire
Year: 2025
In 2023, all regions of British Columbia (BC) experienced record-breaking fire weather and wildfires, with extreme behavior and social-ecological effects. In total, 2245 wildfires burned 2840 545 hectares. Contemporary wildfires are the culmination of a century of altered human–forest–wildfire relationships, exacerbated by climate change. Transformative change is urgently needed for the ecosystems and communities to be resilient to wildfire. We present six interrelated strategies needed to amplify the pace and scale of change in response to recent wildfire extremes: (1) Immediately diversify…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Temporal and spatial pattern analysis of escaped prescribed fires in California from 1991 to 2020
Year: 2025
Background: Prescribed fires play a critical role in reducing the intensity and severity of future wildfires by systematically and widely consuming accumulated vegetation fuel. While the current probability of prescribed fire escape in the United States stands very low, their consequential impact, particularly the large wildfires they cause, raises substantial concerns. The most direct way of understanding this trade-off between wildfire risk reduction and prescribed fire escapes is to explore patterns in the historical prescribed fire records. This study investigates the spatiotemporal…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Influence of Time‐Averaging of Climate Data on Estimates of Atmospheric Vapor Pressure Deficit and Inferred Relationships With Wildfire Area in the Western United States
Year: 2025
Vapor pressure deficit (VPD) is a driver of evaporative demand and correlates strongly with wildfire extent in the western United States (WUS). Vapor pressure deficit is the difference between saturation vapor pressure (es) and actual vapor pressure (ea). Because es increases nonlinearly with temperature, calculations of time‐averaged VPD vary depending on the frequency of temperature measurements and how ea is calculated, potentially limiting our understanding of fire‐climate relationships. We calculate eight versions of monthly VPD across the WUS and assess their differences. Monthly VPDs…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Methods to assess fire-induced tree mortality: review of fire behaviour proxy and real fire experiments
Year: 2025
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, evaluate the appropriateness of and provide a historical timeline of the different approaches that have been used to simulate fire behaviour in fire-induced tree mortality studies.Methods: We conducted a historical review of the different actual and fire proxy methods that have been used to…
Publication Type: Journal Article
State of Wildfires 2023–2024
Year: 2024
Climate change contributes to the increased frequency and intensity of wildfires globally, with significant impacts on society and the environment. However, our understanding of the global distribution of extreme fires remains skewed, primarily influenced by media coverage and regionalised research efforts. This inaugural State of Wildfires report systematically analyses fire activity worldwide, identifying extreme events from the March 2023–February 2024 fire season. We assess the causes, predictability, and attribution of these events to climate change and land use and forecast future risks…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Evacuation decisions of tourists in wildfire scenarios
Year: 2024
This paper investigates the factors affecting evacuation behaviour of tourists in wildfire scenarios by conducting a scoping review using the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analysis approach - here using only its extension for scoping reviews. A total of 524 scientific papers were identified in the Web of Science and Scopus and 23 studies were fully reviewed. Key variables affecting the evacuation behaviour of tourists included property attachment, past experience and preparedness, safety culture, risk perception, individual and group socio-demographics, interaction…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Fuel constraints, not fire weather conditions, limit fire behavior in reburned boreal forests
Year: 2024
Fire frequency in boreal forests has increased via longer burning seasons, drier conditions, and higher temperatures. However, fires have historically self-regulated via fuel limitations, mediating the effects of changes in climate and fire weather. Early post-fire boreal forests (10–15 years postfire) are often dominated by mixed conifer-broadleaf or broadleaf regeneration, considered less flammable due to the higher foliar moisture of broadleaf trees and shrubs compared to their more intact conifer counterparts. However, the strength of self-regulation in the context of changing fire…
Publication Type: Journal Article
‘Mind the Gap’—reforestation needs vs. reforestation capacity in the western United States
Year: 2024
Tree establishment following severe or stand-replacing disturbance is critical for achieving U.S. climate change mitigation goals and for maintaining the co-benefits of intact forest ecosystems. In many contexts, natural post-fire tree regeneration is sufficient to maintain forest cover and associated ecosystem services, but increasingly the pattern and scale of disturbance exceeds ecological thresholds and active reforestation may be warranted. Our capacity to plant trees, however, is not keeping pace with reforestation needs. This shortfall is uniquely apparent in the western U.S., where…
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
Branching out: species-specific canopy architecture limits live crown fuel consumption in Intermountain West USA conifers
Year: 2024
Accurate estimates of available live crown fuel loads are critical for understanding potential wildland fire behavior. Existing crown fire behavior models assume that available crown fuels are limited to all tree foliage and half of the fine branches less than 6 mm in diameter (1 h fuel). They also assume that this relationship is independent of the branchwood moisture content. Despite their widespread use, these assumptions have never been tested, and our understanding of the physiochemical properties that govern live crown flammability and consumption remains limited. To test these…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Improving social resilience to forest fire from community perspective
Year: 2024
Recently, terms like social and community resilience have provided new ideas in reducing disaster risks especially in forest fire. However, a comprehensive and in-depth review of community social resilience concerning forest fires is lacking. There is little research investigate whether certain social or community resilience factors can initiate forest fires or whether forest fire prevention positively be influenced by them. To fill this gap, this paper aims to identify and discuss the factors influencing the occurrence of forest fires in the scope of community social resilience. It also…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Forest structural complexity and ignition pattern influence simulated prescribed fire effects
Year: 2024
Forest structural characteristics, the burning environment, and the choice of ignition pattern each influence prescribed fire behaviors and resulting fire effects; however, few studies examine the influences and interactions of these factors. Understanding how interactions among these drivers can influence prescribed fire behavior and effects is crucial for executing prescribed fires that can safely and effectively meet management objectives. To analyze the interactions between the fuels complex and ignition patterns, we used FIRETEC, a three-dimensional computational fluid dynamics fire…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Patterns, drivers, and implications of postfire delayed tree mortality in temperate conifer forests of the western United States
Year: 2024
Conifer forest resilience may be threatened by increasing wildfire activity and compound disturbances in western North America. Fire refugia enhance forest resilience, yet may decline over time due to delayed mortality—a process that remains poorly understood at landscape and regional scales. To address this uncertainty, we used high-resolution satellite imagery (5-m pixel) to map and quantify delayed mortality of conifer tree cover between 1 and 5 years postfire, across 30 large wildfires that burned within three montane ecoregions in the western United States. We used statistical models to…
Publication Type: Journal Article