Research Database
Displaying 41 - 60 of 190
Exploring the use of satellite Earth observation active wildland fire hotspot data via open access web platforms
Year: 2024
Globally, managing wildland fire is increasing in complexity. Satellite Earth Observation (EO) data, specifically active fire ‘hotspot’ data, is often used to inform wildland fire management. This study explores hotspot data usage via web traffic data (‘user counts’) for the FIRMS, GWIS and EFFIS web portals between September 2019 and April 2023. Global active fire data use is characterized by multi-month periods of relatively low, stable user counts, interspersed with periodic spikes (4.1x median monthly activity) of activity broadly aligned with the North American / European fire season (…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Evaluating driving behavior patterns during wildfire evacuations in wildland-urban interface zones using connected vehicles data
Year: 2024
Wildfire risk is increasing all over the world, particularly in the western United States and the communities in wildland-urban interface (WUI) areas are at the greatest risk of fire. Understanding the driving behavior of individuals to evacuate fire-affected WUI areas is important as the evacuees may encounter low visibility and difficult driving conditions due to burning material and steep topography. This study investigates the driving behavior patterns of individuals during historical wildfire events in rural and urban areas with mandatory evacuation orders using a connected vehicle…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Indigenous Peoples' Rights Discourse: Toward Hemispheric Indigenous Climate and Environmental Justice
Year: 2024
In the face of global climate change, Indigenous communities around the world have increasingly gained recognition as significant actors in the fight for environmental justice and sustainability. This paper endeavors to explore the intersection of Indigenous Peoples’ worldviews and environmental stewardship, while gesturing toward international policies rooted in both state apparatus and in indigenous grassroots efforts. Collectively, this work seeks to illuminate the action, implementation, and community work done by Indigenous Peoples that Hernandez [Binnizá & Maya Ch’orti’] (2022…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Rare and highly destructive wildfires drive human migration in the U.S.
Year: 2024
The scale of wildfire impacts to the built environment is growing and will likely continue under rising average global temperatures. We investigate whether and at what destruction threshold wildfires have influenced human mobility patterns by examining the migration effects of the most destructive wildfires in the contiguous U.S. between 1999 and 2020. We find that only the most extreme wildfires (258+ structures destroyed) influenced migration patterns. In contrast, the majority of wildfires examined were less destructive and did not cause significant changes to out- or in-migration. These…
Economic Impacts of Fire, Public Perceptions of Fire and Smoke, Social and Community Impacts of Fire
Publication Type: Journal Article
Evidence for Wildland Fire Smoke Transport of Microbes From Terrestrial Sources to the Atmosphere and Back
Year: 2024
Smoke from wildland fires contains more diverse, viable microbes than typical ambient air, yet little is known about the sources and sinks of smoke-borne microorganisms. Data from molecular-based surveys suggest that smoke-borne microorganisms originate from material associated with the vegetation and underlying soils that becomes aerosolized during combustion, however, the sources of microbes in smoke have not yet been experimentally assessed. To elucidate this link, we studied high-intensity forest fires in the Fishlake National Forest, Utah, USA and applied source-sink modeling to…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Pre-contact Indigenous fire stewardship: a research framework and application to a Pacific Northwest temperate rainforest
Year: 2024
Fire is a key disturbance process that shapes the structure and function of montane temperate rainforest in the Pacific Northwest (PNW). Recent research is revealing more frequent historical fire activity in the western central Cascades than expected by conventional theory. Indigenous peoples have lived in the PNW for millennia. However, Indigenous people's roles in shaping vegetation mosaics in montane temperate forests of the PNW has been overlooked, despite archaeological evidence of long-term, continuous human use of these landscapes. In this paper, we present a generalizable research…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Molecular shifts in dissolved organic matter along a burn severity continuum for common land cover types in the Pacific Northwest, USA
Year: 2024
Increasing wildfire severity is of growing concern in the western United States, with consequences for the production, composition, and mobilization of dissolved organic matter (DOM) from terrestrial to aquatic systems. Our current understanding of wildfire impacted DOM (often termed pyrogenic DOM) composition is largely built from temperature-based studies that can be difficult to extrapolate to field conditions, which are often defined by ‘burn severity’, or the post-wildfire impact observed at a site. Thus, burn severity can encapsulate a broader range of fire and environmental conditions…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Carbon emissions from the 2023 Canadian wildfires
Year: 2024
The 2023 Canadian forest fires have been extreme in scale and intensity with more than seven times the average annual area burned compared to the previous four decades. Here, we quantify the carbon emissions from these fires from May to September 2023 on the basis of inverse modelling of satellite carbon monoxide observations. We find that the magnitude of the carbon emissions is 647 TgC (570–727 TgC), comparable to the annual fossil fuel emissions of large nations, with only India, China and the USA releasing more carbon per year. We find that widespread hot–dry weather was a principal…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Pathways for sustainable coexistence with wildfires
Year: 2024
Sustainable coexistence with wildfire requires overcoming vicious cycles that trap socio-ecological systems in maladaptive states. A carefully coordinated programme of innovation, education and governance, the ‘wildfire adaptation triad’, is essential for escaping maladaptation across national, community and individual scales.
Publication Type: Journal Article
Fuel types misrepresent forest structure and composition in interior British Columbia: a way forward
Year: 2024
A clear understanding of the connectivity, structure, and composition of wildland fuels is essential for effective wildfire management. However, fuel typing and mapping are challenging owing to a broad diversity of fuel conditions and their spatial and temporal heterogeneity. In Canada, fuel types and potential fire behavior are characterized using the Fire Behavior Prediction (FBP) System, which uses an association approach to categorize vegetation into 16 fuel types based on stand structure and composition. In British Columbia (BC), provincial and national FBP System fuel type maps are…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Tribal stewardship for resilient forest socio-ecosystems
Year: 2024
The Yurok Tribe, along with other tribal communities in northwest California, non-profit organizations, universities, and governmental agencies are working to restore forests and woodlands to be more resilient to wildfires, drought, pests and diseases. Our current work within ancestral Yurok territory is designing and evaluating effects of forest treatments including fuels reduction, tree harvesting, and intentional burning based upon indigenous knowledge and associated traditional stewardship practices. Central to these evaluations are the potential availability, quantity, and quality of…
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
Application of the wildland fire emissions inventory system to estimate fire emissions on forest lands of the United States
Year: 2024
BackgroundForests are significant terrestrial biomes for carbon storage, and annual carbon accumulation of forest biomass contributes offsets affecting net greenhouse gases in the atmosphere. The immediate loss of stored carbon through fire on forest lands reduces the annual offsets provided by forests. As such, the United States reporting includes annual estimates of direct fire emissions in conjunction with the overall forest stock and change estimates as a part of national greenhouse gas inventories within the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change. Forest fire emissions…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Boundary spanners catalyze cultural and prescribed fire in western Canada
Year: 2024
Western Canada is increasingly experiencing impactful and complex wildfire seasons. In response, there are urgent calls to implement prescribed and cultural fire as a key solution to this complex challenge. Unfortunately, there has been limited investment in individuals and organizations that can navigate this complexity and work to implement collaborative solutions across physical, cognitive, and social boundaries. In the wildfire context, these boundaries manifest as jurisdictional silos, a lack of respect for certain forms of knowledge, and a disconnect between knowledge and practice. Here…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Wildfire Smoke Exposure and Incident Dementia
Year: 2024
Importance: Long-term exposure to total fine particulate matter (PM2.5) is a recognized dementia risk factor, but less is known about wildfire-generated PM2.5, an increasingly common PM2.5 source. Objective: To assess the association between long-term wildfire and nonwildfire PM2.5 exposure and risk of incident dementia. Design, Setting, and Participants: This open cohort study was conducted using January 2008 to December 2019 electronic health record (EHR) data among members of Kaiser Permanente Southern California (KPSC), which serves…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Using focus groups for knowledge sharing: Tracking emerging pandemic impacts on USFS wildland fire operations
Year: 2024
In early 2020 the US Forest Service (USFS) recognized the need to gather real-time information from its wildland fire management personnel about their challenges and adaptations during the unfolding COVID-19 pandemic. The USFS conducted 194 virtual focus groups to address these concerns, over 32 weeks from March 2020 to October 2020. This management effort provided an opportunity for an innovative practice-based research study. Here, we outline a novel methodological approach (weekly, iterative focus groups, with two-way communication between USFS staff and leadership), which culminated in a…
Publication Type: Journal Article
Trees have similar growth responses to first-entry fires and reburns following long-term fire exclusion
Year: 2024
Managing fire ignitions for resource benefit decreases fuel loads and reduces the risk of high-severity fire in fire-suppressed dry conifer forests. However, the reintroduction of low-severity wildfire can injure trees, which may decrease their growth after fire. Post-fire growth responses could change from first-entry fires to reburns, as first-entry fires reduce fuel loads and the vulnerability among trees to fire effects, which may result in trees sustaining less damage during reburns. To determine whether trees had growth responses that varied from first-entry fires to reburns, we cored…
Publication Type: Journal Article
The fastest-growing and most destructive fires in the US (2001 to 2020)
Year: 2024
The most destructive and deadly wildfires in US history were also fast. Using satellite data, we analyzed the daily growth rates of more than 60,000 fires from 2001 to 2020 across the contiguous US. Nearly half of the ecoregions experienced destructive fast fires that grew more than 1620 hectares in 1 day. These fires accounted for 78% of structures destroyed and 61% of suppression costs ($18.9 billion). From 2001 to 2020, the average peak daily growth rate for these fires more than doubled (+249% relative to 2001) in the Western US. Nearly 3 million structures were within 4 kilometers of a…
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
Historical pyrodiversity in Douglas-fir forests of the southern Cascades of Oregon, USA
Year: 2024
Our understanding of forest dynamics and successional pathways in coastal Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii var menziesii) forests with relatively frequent mixed-severity fires is limited by a lack of annually precise dendroecological reconstructions that combine records of historical fires and tree establishment. The processes by which old-forest heterogeneity developed under historical fire regimes with recurrent low- and moderate-severity fires has not been well studied at fine temporal scales and across spatial scales. We developed crossdated multi-century records of fire and…
Publication Type: Journal Article