Research Database
Displaying 1 - 7 of 7
Fire severity infuences large wood and stream ecosystem responses in western Oregon watersheds
Year: 2023
Background. Wildfre is a landscape disturbance important for stream ecosystems and the recruitment of large wood (LW; LW describes wood in streams) into streams, with post-fre management also playing a role. We used a stratifed random sample of 4th-order watersheds that represent a range of pre-fre stand age and fre severity from unburned to entirely burned watersheds to 1) determine whether watershed stand age (pre-fre) or fre severity afected riparianoverstory survival, riparian coarse wood (CW; CW describes wood in riparian areas), LW, or in-stream physical, chemical, and biological…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Building water resilience in the face of cascading wildfire risks
Year: 2023
Severe wildfire is altering the natural and the built environment and posing risks to environmental and societal health and well-being, including cascading impacts to water systems and built water infrastructure. Research on wildfire-resilient water systems is growing but not keeping pace with the scale and severity of wildfire impacts, despite their intensifying threat. In this study, we evaluate the state of knowledge regarding wildfire-related hazards to water systems. We propose a holistic framework to assess interactions and feedback loops between water quality, quantity, and…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Proportion of forest area burned at high-severity increases with increasing forest cover and connectivity in western US watersheds
Year: 2023
Context In western US forests, the increasing frequency of large high-severity fires presents challenges for society. Quantifying how fuel conditions influence high-severity area is important for managing risks of large high-severity fires and understanding how they are changing with climate change. Fuel availability and heterogeneity influence high-severity fire probability, but heterogeneity is insensitive to some aspects of forest connectivity that are important to potential high-severity fire transmission and thus high-severity area. Objectives To quantify the effects of fuel availability…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Lightning-Ignited Wildfires in the Western United States: Ignition Precipitation and Associated Environmental Conditions
Year: 2023
Cloud-to-ground lightning with minimal rainfall (“dry” lightning) is a major wildfire ignition source in the western United States (WUS). Although dry lightning is commonly defined as occurring with <2.5 mm of daily-accumulated precipitation, a rigorous quantification of precipitation amounts concurrent with lightning-ignited wildfires (LIWs) is lacking. We combine wildfire, lightning and precipitation data sets to quantify these ignition precipitation amounts across ecoprovinces of the WUS. The median precipitation for all LIWs is 2.8 mm but varies with vegetation and fire characteristics…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Water utility engagement in wildfire mitigation in watersheds in the western United States
Year: 2023
Scaling up climate-adaptation in wildfire-prone watersheds requires innovative partnerships and funding. Water utilities are one stakeholder group that could play a role in these efforts. The overarching purpose of this study was to understand water utility engagement in wildfire mitigation efforts in the western United States. We conducted an online survey of water utilities in nine states and received 173 useable responses. While most (68%) respondents were concerned or very concerned about future wildfire events and the impact of wildfire on their operations, only 39% perceived their…
Economic Impacts of Fire, Restoration and Hazardous Fuel Reduction, Social and Community Impacts of Fire
Publication Type: Journal Article
Community Forests advance local wildfire governance and proactive management in British Columbia, Canada
Year: 2023
As wildfires are increasingly causing negative impacts to communities and their livelihoods, many communities are demanding more proactive and locally driven approaches to address wildfire risk. This marks a shift away from centralized governance models where decision-making is concentrated in government agencies that prioritize reactive wildfire suppression. In British Columbia (BC), Canada, Community Forests—a long-term, area-based tenure granted to Indigenous and/or local communities—are emerging as local leaders facilitating proactive wildfire management. To explore the factors that are…
Restoration and Hazardous Fuel Reduction, Risk Assessment and Analysis, Social and Community Impacts of Fire
Publication Type: Journal Article
Disaster preparedness and community helping behaviour in the wake of the 2020 Oregon wildfires
Year: 2023
Extreme weather events are increasing in frequency and severity owing to climate change. Individual-level behavioural responses—notably, disaster preparedness and community helping actions (such as donating and volunteering)—supplement government efforts to respond to such phenomena, but rarely have they been explored together. Using data from a survey administered soon after the 2020 Oregon wildfires, this paper compares a range of socio-demographic, experiential, attitudinal, and communication-related factors associated with these two individual-level behavioural responses. Findings…
Publication Type: Journal Article