More than a century of forest and fire management of Inland Pacific landscapes has transformed their successional and disturbance dynamics.
With the potential for worsening fire conditions, discussion is escalating over how to best reduce effects on urban communities. A widely supported strategy is the creation of defensible space immediately surrounding homes and other structures.
Recent studies of historical fire regimes indicate that fires occurring prior to Euro-American settlement were characterized by a high degree of spatial complexity that was driven by heterogeneity in vegetation/fuels and topography and influenced by variability in climate, which mediated the timing, effects, and extents of fires over time.
Ecological restoration is a practice that seeks to heal degraded ecosystems by reestablishing native species, structural characteristics, and ecological processes.
Land managers in the Pacific Northwest have reported a need for updated scientific information on the ecology and management of mixed-conifer forests east of the Cascade Range in Oregon and Washington. Of particular concern are the moist mixed-conifer forests, which have become drought-stressed and vulnerable to high-severity fire after decades of human disturbances and climate warming.
Much of the 10 million acres of forestland in eastern Washington faces serious threats to forest health. Decades of fire suppression and past management practices that changed the species and structure of these forests have put them at higher risk of damage by disease, insects and wildfire.
Until recently, scientific understanding of the history and ecology of the Pacific Northwest’s mixed-conifer forests east of the Cascade Range was minimal. As a result, forest managers have had limited ability to restore the health of publicly owned forests that show signs of acute stress caused by insects, disease, grazing, logging, and wildfire.
The forest restoration challenge (globally 2 billion ha) and the prospect of changing climate with increasing frequency of extreme events argues for approaching restoration from a functional and landscape perspective. Because the practice of restoration utilizes many techniques common to silviculture, no clear line separates ordinary forestry practices from restoration.
Forest management of dry forests in the western US that historically experienced mixed-severity fire regimes is increasingly focused on landscape-scale restoration.
Encouraging the public to take action (e.g., creating defensible space) that can reduce the likelihood of wildfire damage and decrease the likelihood of injury is a common approach to increasing wildfire safety and damage mitigation.