Research Database
Displaying 1 - 20 of 257
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
Integrated fire management as an adaptation and mitigation strategy to altered fire regimes
Year: 2025
Altered fire regimes are a global challenge, increasingly exacerbated by climate change, which modifies fire weather and prolongs fire seasons. These changing conditions heighten the vulnerability of ecosystems and human populations to the impacts of wildfires on the environment, society, and the economy. The rapid pace of these changes exposes significant gaps in knowledge, tools, technology, and governance structures needed to adopt informed, holistic approaches to fire management that address both current and future challenges. Integrated Fire Management is an approach that combines fire…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Changing fire regimes in the Great Basin USA
Year: 2025
Wildfire is a natural disturbance in landscapes of the Western United States, but the effects and extents of fire are changing. Differences between historical and contemporary fire regimes can help identify reasons for observed changes in landscape composition. People living and working in the Great Basin, USA, are observing altered fire conditions, but spatial information about the degree and direction of change and departure from historical fire regimes is lacking. This study estimates how fire regimes have changed in the major Great Basin vegetation types over the past 60 years with…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Patterns and trends of heat and wildfire smoke indicators across rural–urban and social vulnerability gradients in Idaho
Year: 2025
Climate change poses a grave threat to human health with disparate impacts across society. While populations with high social vulnerability generally bear a larger burden of exposure to and impact from environmental hazards; such patterns and trends are less explored at the confluence of social vulnerability and rural–urban gradients. We show that in rural regions in Idaho, low vulnerability populations had both the highest long-term average and the highest increase rate of exposure to heatwaves from 2002–2020, coincident with a higher population density in low—as compared to high—…
Publication Type: Journal Article
The national Fire and Fire Surrogate study: Effects of fuel treatments in the Western and Eastern United States after 20 years
Year: 2025
The national Fire and Fire Surrogate (FFS) study was initiated more than two decades ago with the goal of evaluating the ecological impacts of mechanical treatments and prescribed fire in different ecosystems across the United States. Since then, 4 of the original 12 sites remain active in managing and monitoring the original FFS study which provides a unique opportunity to look at the long-term effects of these treatments in different regions. These sites include California (Blodgett Forest Research Station), Montana (Lubrecht Experimental Forest), North Carolina (Green River Game Land), and…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Farming and ranching through wildfire: Producers’ critical role in fire risk management and emergency response
Year: 2025
Wildfires increasingly threaten California’s agricultural sector, posing serious risks to farming, ranching, and food systems. We conducted a survey of 505 California farmers and ranchers affected by wildfires between 2017 and 2023. Main findings show that wildfires’ impacts on producers are extensive and range from mild to catastrophic, with both short and long-term repercussions, regardless of their exposure level. Producers play a central role in community emergency wildfire risk response and management by reducing fuel loads, creating defensible space, and leveraging their fire management…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Trailing edge contractions common in interior western US trees under varying disturbances
Year: 2025
As climate warms, trees are expected to track their ideal climate, referred to as ‘range shifts’; however, lags in tree range shifts are currently common. Disturbance events that kill trees may help catalyse tree migrations by removing biotic competition, but can also limit regeneration by eliminating seed sources, and it is unknown whether disturbance will facilitate or inhibit tree migrations in the face of climate change. Here we use national forest inventory data to show that seedlings of 15 dominant tree species in the interior western United States occupy historically cooler areas than…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Designing Burn Windows for Integrated Fire Management in Wetlands: Why Should Flooding Not Be Overlooked?
Year: 2025
Changes in natural wildfire patterns can cause significant impacts on biodiversity, health, and economies. This has sparked discussions on better fire management. One strategy used by countries is Integrated Fire Management (IFM), with prescribed burning as one of the main tools. Prescribed burns effectively depend on specific burn windows. These windows, defined as flood-free areas like savannas, may not suit wetlands due to the influence of flooding on factors like fuel availability. We examined how hydrological patterns affect burn windows in wetlands, using the Pantanal as a model—the…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Can ‘‘Fire Safe’’ Cigarettes (FSCs) Start Wildfires?
Year: 2025
Over the last 20 years, all states within the US have required all cigarettes sold to be ‘‘fire safe’’ or ‘‘fire standards compliant’’ meaning that they must pass ASTM standard E2187. Though these cigarettes are designed to self-extinguish, there have been recent studies suggesting that these ‘‘fire safe’’ cigarettes (FSCs) can still ignite mattresses and other furnishings, but there has been no guidance for fire investigators whether FSCs can ignite natural fuels, such as duff and needles, that can be the source of a wildland fire. This work sets out to investigate whether FSCs can indeed be…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Spatiotemporal Synchrony of Climate and Fire Occurrence Across North American Forests (1750–1880)
Year: 2025
Aim: Increasing aridity has driven widespread synchronous fire occurrence in recent decades across North America. The lack of historical (pre-1880) fire records limits our ability to understand long-term continental fire-climate dynamics. The goal of this study is to use tree-ring reconstructions to determine the relationships between spatiotemporal patterns in historical climate and widespread fire occurrence in North American forests, and whether they are stable through time. This information will address a major knowledge gap required to inform projections of future fire.Location: North…
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
High fire hazard Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) residences in California lack voluntary and mandated wildfire risk mitigation compliance in Home Ignition Zones
Year: 2025
Wildfire structure losses are increasing globally and particularly in California, USA. Losses can be mitigated in part by changes to the Home Ignition Zone (HIZ), including both home hardening and defensible space. In the United States, there are local, nation-wide, and industry-based home mitigation standards that are enforced or recommended. We explore the standards implementation (California code and two voluntary standards) at 176 participating residences in three Santa Cruz Mountains and two Sierra Nevada Mountains sites. Overall most residences had little compulsory or recommended…
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
Mental health risk for wildland firefighters: a review and future directions
Year: 2025
Wildland fire is increasingly a consequence of the climate crisis, with growing impacts on communities and individuals. Wildland firefighters are critical to the successful management of wildland fire, yet very limited research has considered mental health in this population. Although a wealth of research in mental health risk and associated risk and protective factors exists for structural firefighters, unique demands of wildland firefighting such as the seasonal nature of work, the length and intensity of shifts, and the often geographically isolated working conditions, among other factors…
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
Compounding effects of climate change and WUI expansion quadruple the likelihood of extreme-impact wildfires in California
Year: 2025
Previous research has examined individual factors contributing to wildfire risk, but the compounding effects of these factors remain underexplored. Here, we introduce the “Integrated Human-centric Wildfire Risk Index (IHWRI)” to quantify the compounding effects of fire-weather intensification and anthropogenic factors—including ignitions and human settlement into wildland—on wildfire risk. While climatic trends increased the frequency of high-risk fire-weather by 2.5-fold, the combination of this trend with wildland-urban interface expansion led to a 4.1-fold increase in the frequency of…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Burning from the ground up: the structure and impact of Prescribed Burn Associations in the United States
Year: 2025
Background: To combat losses and threats from fire exclusion and extreme wildfire events, communities in the United States are increasingly self-organizing through locally led Prescribed Burn Associations (PBAs) to plan and implement prescribed burns on private lands.Aim: Our study aimed to document the expansion of PBAs and provide insight into their structure, function, and impacts.Methods: Leaders from 135 known PBAs across the United States were invited to participate in an online survey.Key results: Survey results demonstrate a widespread emergence of PBAs in the United States,…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Understanding rural adaptation to smoke from wildfires and forest management: insights for aligning approaches with community contexts
Year: 2025
Background: Rural communities are increasingly impacted by smoke produced by wildfires and forest management activties. Understanding local influences on smoke adaptation and mitigation is critical to social adaptation as fire risk continues to rise.Aims: We sought to determine the role of local social context in smoke adaptation and gauge interest in adaptation strategies that might reduce exposure.Methods: We conducted 46 semi-structured interviews with 56 residents and professionals in Parks, Arizona, USA, a rural community adjacent to…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Household needs among wildfire survivors in the 2017 Northern California wildfires
Year: 2025
Wildfires are impacting communities globally, with California wildfires often breaking records of size and destructiveness. Knowing how communities are affected by these wildfires is vital to understanding recovery. We sought to identify impacted communities' post-wildfire needs and characterize how those needs change over time. The WHAT-Now study deployed a survey that was made publicly available for communities affected by the October 2017 Northern California wildfires or the accompanying smoke at beginning approximately four months post-fire with the vast majority completed by nine months…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Roof renewal disparities widen the equity gap in residential wildfire protection
Year: 2025
Wildfires are having disproportionate impacts on U.S. households. Notably, in California, over half of wildfire-destroyed homes (54%) are in low-income areas. We investigate the relationship between social vulnerability and wildfire community preparedness using building permits from 16 counties in California with 2.9 million buildings (2013–2021) and the U.S. government’s designation of disadvantaged communities (DACs), which classifies a census tract as a DAC if it meets a threshold for certain burdens, such as climate, environmental, and socio-economic. Homes located in DACs are 29% more…
Publication Type: Journal Article