Research Database
Displaying 1 - 20 of 113
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
Future enhanced threshold effects of wildfire drivers could increase burned areas in northern mid- and high latitudes
Year: 2025
Wildfires exhibit extensive nonlinear characteristics and threshold effects in response to environmental changes. However, how threshold effects affect wildfire responses and their future changes remains unclear. Here we identified thresholds where wildfire-driver relationships shift and estimated the impact of threshold effects on wildfire dynamics in the 21st century in northern mid- and high latitudes (>30°N). Wildfire-driver thresholds, coregulated by gradient differences in heat and moisture conditions, vegetation productivity, and human activities, effectively explain the spatial…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Wildland Firefighters Suffer Increasing Risk of Job-Related Death
Year: 2025
Wildland firefighting is a niche specialization in the fire service - inherently dangerous with unique risks. Over the past decade, fatalities amongst all firefighters have decreased; however, wildland firefighter fatalities have increased. This subject has only been described in the grey literature, and a paucity of medical literature exists. The United States Fire Administration's online fatality database was queried for on duty mortality between 1990 and 2022. The year 2001 was excluded due to the 340 deaths that occurred on September 11th. Data collected included demographics, incident…
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
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
Increasing Hydroclimatic Whiplash Can Amplify Wildfire Risk in a Warming Climate
Year: 2025
On January 7 and 8, 2025, a series of wind-driven wildfires occurred in Los Angeles County in Southern California. Two of these fires ignited in dense woody chaparral shrubland and immediately burned into adjacent populated areas–the Palisades Fire on the coastal slopes of the Santa Monica Mountains and the Eaton fire in the foothills of the San Gabriel Mountains. Both fires ultimately eclipsed the traditionally-defined “wildland-urban interface” boundaries by burning structure-to-structure as an urban conflagration. The scope of the devastation is staggering; at the time of writing, the…
Publication Type: Report
Assessing wildland fire suppression effectiveness with infrared imaging on experimental fires
Year: 2025
Background: Suppression effectiveness is often evaluated by measuring the extent to which it slows fire spread and reduces fireline intensity. Although studies have used infrared (IR) imaging methods to explore suppression effectiveness, most do not measure or assess the influence of water application on energy release.Aims: This preliminary analysis uses IR imagery to quantify the impact of suppression on fire behaviour and the reduction in energy released from a flaming fire.Methods: We conducted a series of small-scale experimental burns…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Future fire events are likely to be worse than climate projections indicate – these are some of the reasons why
Year: 2024
BackgroundClimate projections signal longer fire seasons and an increase in the number of dangerous fire weather days for much of the world including Australia.AimsHere we argue that heatwaves, dynamic fire–atmosphere interactions and increased fuel availability caused by drought will amplify potential fire behaviour well beyond projections based on calculations of afternoon forest fire danger derived from climate models.MethodsWe review meteorological dynamics contributing to enhanced fire behaviour during heatwaves, drawing on examples of…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Retention of highly qualified wildland firefighters in the Western United States
Year: 2024
Federal agencies responsible for wildland fire management face increasing needs for personnel as fire seasons lengthen and fire size continues to grow, yet federal agencies have struggled to recruit and retain firefighting personnel. While many have speculated that long seasons, challenging working conditions, and low wages contribute to recruitment and retention challenges, there has been…
Publication Type: Journal Article
The cost of operational complexity: A causal assessment of pre-fire mitigation and wildfire suppression
Year: 2024
Pre-fire mitigation efforts that include the installation and maintenance of fuel breaks are integral to wildfire suppression in Southern California. Fuel breaks alter fire behavior and assist in fire suppression at strategic locations on the landscape. However, the combined effectiveness of fuel breaks and wildfire suppression is not well studied. Using daily firefighting personnel to proxy the quantity and diversity of potential fire suppression operations (i.e., operational complexity), we examined 15 wildfires from 2017 to 2020 in the Los Padres, Angeles, San Bernardino, and Cleveland…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Drought triggers and sustains overnight fires in North America
Year: 2024
Overnight fires are emerging in North America with previously unknown drivers and implications. This notable phenomenon challenges the traditional understanding of the ‘active day, quiet night’ model of the diurnal fire cycle1,2,3 and current fire management practices4,…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Hydrometeorology-wildfire relationship analysis based on a wildfire bivariate probabilistic framework in different ecoregions of the continental United States
Year: 2024
Wildfires are a natural part of the ecosystem in the U.S.. It is vital to classify wildfires using a comprehensive approach that simultaneously considers wildfire activity (the number of wildfires) and burned area. On this basis, the influence of hydrometeorological variables on wildfires can be further analyzed. Therefore, this study first classified wildfire types using a wildfire bivariate probability framework. Then, by considering six hydrometeorological variables, the dominant hydrometeorological variables for different wildfire types in 17 ecoregions of the United States were…
Publication Type: Journal Article
From flexibility to feasibility: identifying the policy conditions that support the management of wildfire for objectives other than full suppression
Year: 2024
Background. Intentional management of naturally ignited wildfires has emerged as a valuable tool for addressing the social and ecological consequences of a century of fire exclusion in policy and practice. Policy in the United States now allows wildfires to be managed for suppression and other than full suppression (OTFS) objectives simultaneously, giving flexibility to local decision makers. Aims. To extend existing research on the history of wildfire management, investigate how wildfire professionals interpret current policy with respect to OTFS management, and better understand how they…
Publication Type: Journal Article
The Efficacy of Red Flag Warnings in Mitigating Human-Caused Wildfires across the Western United States
Year: 2024
Red flag warnings (RFWs) are issued by the U.S. National Weather Service to alert fire and emergency response agencies of weather conditions that are conducive to extreme wildfire growth. Distinct from most weather warnings that aim to reduce exposure to anticipated hazards, RFWs may also mitigate hazards by reducing the occurrence of new ignitions. We examined the efficacy of RFWs as a means of limiting human-caused wildfire ignitions. From 2006 to 2020, approximately 8% of wildfires across the western United States and 19% of large wildfires (≥40 ha) occurred on days with RFWs. Although the…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Comparing ground-based lightning detection networks near wildfire points-of-origin
Year: 2024
Lightning detection and attribution to wildfire ignitions is a critical component of fire management worldwide to both reduce hazards of wildfire to values-at-risk and to enhance the potential for wildland fire to provide resource benefits in fire-adapted ecosystems. We compared two operational ground-based lightning detection networks used by fire managers to identify cloud-to-ground strokes within operationally-relevant distances (1.6 km) of the origins of 4408 western United States lightning-ignited wildfires spanning May–September 2020. Applying two sets of constraints–varying…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Quantifying wildland fire resources deployed during the compound threat of COVID-19
Year: 2024
Fire agencies across the United States must make complex resource allocation decisions to manage wildfires using a national network of shared firefighting resources. Firefighters play a critical role in suppressing fires and protecting vulnerable communities. However, they are exposed to health and safety risks associated with fire, smoke inhalation, and infectious disease transmission. The COVID-19 pandemic further complicated these risks, prompting fire agencies to propose resource management adaptations to minimize COVID-19 exposure and transmission. It is unclear if and how the pandemic…
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
Factors Associated with Concurrent Tobacco Smoking and Heavy Drinking within a Women Firefighters’ Sample
Year: 2024
Studies showed that tobacco use and excessive alcohol consumption frequently occur, and both are significant causes of preventable morbidity and mortality. Data were collected as part of a national online study of the health of women in the fire service. Multinomial logistic regression was employed to determine factors associated with smoking and drinking characteristics. A total of 2330 women firefighters completed questions regarding tobacco and alcohol use; 3.2% (n = 75) were concurrent users, 0.9% (n = 22) were smokers only, 49.4% (n = 1150) were heavy drinkers only, and 46.5% (n = 1083)…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Metals in Wildfire Suppressants
Year: 2024
Frequent and severe wildfires have led to increased application of fire suppression products (long-term fire retardants, water enhancers, and Class A foams) in the American West. While fire suppressing products used on wildfires must be approved by theU.S. Forest Service, portions of their formulations are trade secrets.Increased metals content in soils and surface waters at the wildland-urban interface has been observed after wildfires but has primarily been attributed to ash deposition or anthropogenic impact from nearby urban areas. In this study, metal concentrations in several fire…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Near-term fire weather forecasting in the Pacific Northwest using 500-hPa map types
Year: 2024
BackgroundNear-term forecasts of fire danger based on predicted surface weather and fuel dryness are widely used to support the decisions of wildfire managers. The incorporation of synoptic-scale upper-air patterns into predictive models may provide additional value in operational forecasting.AimsIn this study, we assess the impact of synoptic-scale upper-air patterns on the occurrence of large wildfires and widespread fire outbreaks in the US Pacific Northwest. Additionally, we examine how discrete upper-air map types can augment subregional models of…
Publication Type: Journal Article