Restoration and Hazardous Fuel Reduction

Wildfires and fire seasons are commonly rated largely on the simple metric of area burned (more hectares: bad). A seemingly paradoxical narrative frames large fire seasons as a symptom of a forest health problem (too much fire), while simultaneously stating that fire-dependent forests lack sufficient fire to maintain system resilience (too little fire).

Fuels reduction projects are an increasing focus of policy, funding, and management actions aimed at reducing wildfire risk to human populations while improving landscape health. This research used in-depth interviews to explore variable support or opposition to three fuels-reduction projects occurring in the same region of north central Washington State, USA.

The western United States is projected to experience more frequent and severe wildfires in the future due to drier and hotter climate conditions, exacerbating destructive wildfire impacts on forest ecosystems such as tree mortality and unsuccessful post-fire regeneration.

Background In California’s mixed-conifer forests, fuel reduction treatments can successfully reduce fire severity, bolster forest resilience, and make lasting changes in forest structure. However, current understanding of the duration of treatment effectiveness is lacking robust empirical evidence.

The synergistic effects of widespread high-severity wildfire and anthropogenic climate change are driving large-scale vegetation conversion. In the southwestern United States, areas that were once dominated by conifer forests are now shrub- or grasslands after high-severity wildfire, an ecosystem conversion that could be permanent without human intervention.

As 21st-century climate and disturbance dynamics depart from historic baselines, ecosystem resilience is uncertain. Multiple drivers are changing simultaneously, and interactions among drivers could amplify ecosystem vulnerability to change. Subalpine forests in Greater Yellowstone (Northern Rocky Mountains, USA) were historically resilient to infrequent (100–300 year), severe fire.

Background: The risk of destructive wildfire on fire-prone landscapes with excessive fuel buildup has prompted the use of fuel reduction treatments to protect valued resources from wildfire damage. The question of how to maximize the effectiveness of fuel reduction treatments at landscape scales is important because treating an entire landscape may be undesirable or unfeasible.

As contemporary wildfire activity intensifies across the western United States, there is increasing recognition that a variety of forest management activities are necessary to restore ecosystem function and reduce wildfire hazard in dry forests. However, the pace and scale of current, active forest management is insufficient to address restoration needs.

Context Addressing ecosystem degradation in the Anthropocene will require ecological restoration across large spatial extents. Identifying areas where natural regeneration will occur without direct resource investment will improve scalability of restoration actions.