Research Database
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10
Toward a more ecologically informed view of severe forest fires
Year: 2016
We use the historical presence of high-severity fire patches in mixed-conifer forests of the western United States to make several points that we hope will encourage development of a more ecologically informed view of severe wildland fire effects. First, many plant and animal species use, and have sometimes evolved to depend on, severely burned forest conditions for their persistence. Second, evidence from fire history studies also suggests that a complex mosaic of severely burned conifer patches was common historically in the West. Third, to maintain ecological integrity in forests born of…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Does increased forest protection correspond to higher fire severity in frequent-fire forests of the western United States?
Year: 2016
There is a widespread view among land managers and others that the protected status of many forestlands in the western United States corresponds with higher fire severity levels due to historical restrictions on logging that contribute to greater amounts of biomass and fuel loading in less intensively managed areas, particularly after decades of fire suppression. This view has led to recent proposals—both administrative and legislative—to reduce or eliminate forest protections and increase some forms of logging based on the belief that restrictions on active management have increased fire…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Living on a flammable planet: interdisciplinary, cross-scalar and varied cultural lessons, prospects and challenges
Year: 2016
Living with fire is a challenge for human communities because they are influenced by socio-economic, political, ecological and climatic processes at various spatial and temporal scales. Over the course of 2 days, the authors discussed how communities could live with fire challenges at local, national and transnational scales. Exploiting our diverse, international and interdisciplinary expertise, we outline generalizable properties of fire-adaptive communities in varied settings where cultural knowledge of fire is rich and diverse. At the national scale, we discussed policy and management…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Areas of Agreement and Disagreement Regarding Ponderosa Pine and Mixed Conifer Forest Fire Regimes: A Dialogue with Stevens et al.
Year: 2016
In a recent PLOS ONE paper, we conducted an evidence-based analysis of current versus historical fire regimes and concluded that traditionally defined reference conditions of low-severity fire regimes for ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa) and mixed-conifer forests were incomplete, missing considerable variability in forest structure and fire regimes. Stevens et al. (this issue) agree that high-severity fire was a component of these forests, but disagree that one of the several sources of evidence, stand age from a large number of forest inventory and analysis (FIA) plots across the western USA…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Health and Environmental Impacts of Smoke from Vegetation Fires: A Review
Year: 2016
Smoke exposure is often an inevitable side effect of open vegetation fires (both planned and wild) and is an important public health concern. The objective of this paper is to summarize state-of-the-art knowledge on health and environmental impacts of smoke from vegetation fires, to identify research gaps, and to provide needed information to researchers, land managers, policymakers, health care workers, and the general public. The main components of vegetation fire smoke and their characterizations are identified and evaluated. Concentrations, emission ratios, and emission factors of smoke…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Forest fire policy: change conventional thinking of smoke management to prioritize long-term air quality and public health
Year: 2016
Wildland fire smoke is inevitable. Size and intensity of wildland fires are increasing in the western USA. Smoke-free skies and public exposure to wildland fire smoke have effectively been postponed through suppression. The historic policy of suppression has systematically both instilled a public expectation of a smoke-free environment and deferred emissions through increased forest fuel loads that will lead to an eventual large spontaneous release. High intensity fire smoke is impacting a larger area including high density urban areas. Policy change has largely attempted to provide the…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Socioecological transitions trigger fire regime shifts and modulate fire–climate interactions in the Sierra Nevada, USA, 1600–2015 CE
Year: 2016
Large wildfires in California cause significant socioecological impacts, and half of the federal funds for fire suppression are spent each year in California. Future fire activity is projected to increase with climatechange, but predictions are uncertain because humans can modulate or even override climatic effects on fire activity. Here we test the hypothesis that changes in socioecological systems from the NativeAmerican to the current period drove shifts in fire activity and modulated fire–climate relationships in the Sierra Nevada. We developed a 415-y record (1600–2015 CE) of fire…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Local and regional smoke impacts from prescribed fires
Year: 2016
Smoke from wildfires poses a significant threat to affected communities. Prescribed burning is conducted to reduce the extent and potential damage of wildfires, but produces its own smoke threat. Planners of prescribed fires model the likely dispersion of smoke to help manage the impacts on local communities. Significant uncertainty remains about the actual smoke impact from prescribed fires, especially near the fire, and the accuracy of smoke dispersal models. To address this uncertainty, a detailed study of smoke dispersal was conducted for one small (52 ha) and one large (700 ha)…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Average Stand Age from Forest Inventory Plots Does Not Describe Historical Fire Regimes in Ponderosa Pine and Mixed-Conifer Forests of Western North America
Year: 2016
Quantifying historical fire regimes provides important information for managing contemporary forests. Historical fire frequency and severity can be estimated using several methods; each method has strengths and weaknesses and presents challenges for interpretation and verification. Recent efforts to quantify the timing of historical high-severity fire events in forests of western North America have assumed that the “stand age” variable from the US Forest Service Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) program reflects the timing of historical high-severity (i.e. stand-replacing) fire in ponderosa…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Review of the health effects of wildland fire smoke on wildland firefighters and the public
Year: 2016
Each year, the general public and wildland firefighters in the US are exposed to smoke from wildland fires. As part of an effort to characterize health risks of breathing this smoke, a review of the literature was conducted using five major databases, including PubMed and MEDLINE Web of Knowledge, to identify smoke components that present the highest hazard potential, the mechanisms of toxicity, review epidemiological studies for health effects and identify the current gap in knowledge on the health impacts of wildland fire smoke exposure. Respiratory events measured in time series studies as…
Publication Type: Journal Article