Research Database
Displaying 1 - 20 of 176
Extreme Fire Spread Events Burn More Severely and Homogenize Postfire Landscapes in the Southwestern United States
Year: 2025
Extreme fire spread events rapidly burn large areas with disproportionate impacts on people and ecosystems. Such events are associated with warmer and drier fire seasons and are expected to increase in the future. Our understanding of the landscape outcomes of extreme events is limited, particularly regarding whether they burn more severely or produce spatial patterns less conducive to ecosystem recovery. To assess relationships between fire spread rates and landscape burn severity patterns, we used satellite fire detections to create day‐of‐burning maps for 623 fires comprising 4267 single‐…
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
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
Long-term soil nutrient and understory plant responses to post-fire rehabilitation in a lodgepole pine forest
Year: 2025
Wildfires and other disturbances play a fundamental role in regenerating lodgepole pine forests. Though severe, stand-replacing fires are typical of this ecosystem, they can have dramatic impacts on soil properties and biogeochemical processes that influence the rate and composition of vegetation recovery. Organic soil amendments are often applied to manage post-fire erosion, but they can also improve soil moisture and nutrient retention and potentially alter the trajectory of post-fire revegetation. We compared change in soil nutrients, microbial communities, and understory plant cover and…
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
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
Small-scale fire refugia increase soil bacterial and fungal richness and increase community cohesion nine years after fire
Year: 2025
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 forest to identify how fine-scale wildfire behavior, unburned refugia, and aboveground forest structure are associated with belowground bacterial and fungal communities nine years after wildfire. We used fine-scale mapping of small (0.9–172.6 m2) refugia to sample soil-associated burned and…
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
Effects of long-term ecological research and cognitive biases on the evaluation of scientific information by public land managers in Oregon and Washington, USA
Year: 2025
Natural resource managers (managers) value and use scientific information to inform their decision-making process in a variety of ways. The scientific information managers use depends on a variety of factors, including the source of the information and ease of access. Barriers, such as paywalls, insufficient capacity, and information overload play an important role in determining what scientific information managers have access and attend to. Additionally, characteristics of managers themselves also influence what scientific information they prioritize and implement. Specific factors likely…
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
Complexities in post-wildfire governance: lessons from Colorado’s 2020 wildfires
Year: 2025
Background: The increasing size and severity of western U.S. wildfires in recent years has generated greater attention towards post-wildfire response and recovery. Post-fire governance requires coordinating response and recovery capacities across jurisdictions, landscapes, and time scales. The presence of wildfire on federal public lands necessitates federal agency involvement in both suppression and recovery efforts, and program coordination with lower levels of government and non-governmental organizations. Using semi-structured interviews, we investigated experiences of leaders across the…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Moderating effects of past wildfire on reburn severity depend on climate and initial severity in Western US forests
Year: 2024
Rising global fire activity is increasing the prevalence of repeated short-interval burning (reburning) in forests worldwide. In forests that historically experienced frequent-fire regimes, high-severity fire exacerbates the severity of subsequent fires by increasing prevalence of shrubs and/or by creating drier understory conditions. Low- to moderate-severity fire, in contrast, can moderate future fire behavior by reducing fuel loads. The extent to which previous fires moderate future fire severity will powerfully affect fire-prone forest ecosystem trajectories over the next century. Further…
Publication Type: Journal Article
When do contemporary wildfires restore forest structures in the Sierra Nevada?
Year: 2024
Background: Following a century of fire suppression in western North America, managers use forest restoration treatments to reduce fuel loads and reintroduce key processes like fire. However, annual area burned by wildfire frequently outpaces the application of restoration treatments. As this trend continues under climate change, it is essential that we understand the effects of contemporary wildfires on forest ecosystems and the extent to which post-fire structures are meeting common forest restoration objectives. In this study, we used airborne lidar to evaluate fire effects across yellow…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Thinning and Managed Burning Enhance Forest Resilience in Northeastern California
Year: 2024
Understanding and quantifying the resilience of forests to disturbances are increasingly important for forest management. Historical fire suppression, logging, and other land uses have increased densities of shade tolerant trees and fuel buildup in the western United States, which has reduced the resilience of these forests to natural disturbances. One way to mitigate this problem is to use fuel treatments such as stand thinning and prescribed burning. In this study, we investigated changes in forest structure in the Lassen and Plumas National Forests of northern California following a large…
Publication Type: Journal Article
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
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
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
Stand diversity increases pine resistance and resilience to compound disturbance
Year: 2024
BackgroundDrought, fire, and insects are increasing mortality of pine species throughout the northern temperate zone as climate change progresses. Tree survival may be enhanced by forest diversity, with growth rates often higher in mixed stands, but whether tree defenses are likewise aided remains in question. We tested how forest diversity-productivity patterns relate to growth and defense over three centuries of climate change, competition, wildfire, and bark beetle attack. We used detailed census data from a fully mapped 25.6-ha forest dynamics plot in California, USA to…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Fire severity drives understory community dynamics and the recovery of culturally significant plants
Year: 2024
Anthropogenic influences are altering fire regimes worldwide, resulting in an increase in the size and severity of wildfires. Simultaneously, throughout western North America, there is increasing recognition of the important role of Indigenous fire stewardship in shaping historical fire regimes and fire-adapted ecosystems. However, there is limited understanding of how ecosystems are affected by or recover from contemporary “megafires,” particularly in terms of understory plant communities that are critical to both biodiversity and Indigenous cultures. To address this gap, our collaborative…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Prefire Drought Intensity Drives Postfire Recovery and Mortality in Pinus monticola and Pseudotsuga menziesii Saplings
Year: 2024
Increasing frequency of droughts and wildfire are sparking concerns that these compounded disturbance events are pushing forested ecosystems beyond recovery. An improved understanding of how compounded events affect tree physiology and mortality is needed given the reliance of fire management planning on accurate estimates of postfire tree mortality. In this study, we use a toxicological dose-response approach to quantify the impact of variable-intensity drought and fire on the physiology and mortality of Pinus monticola and Pseudotsuga menziesii saplings. We show that the…
Publication Type: Journal Article