Journal Article

Forest fires importantly influence our environment and lives. The ability of accurately predicting the area that may be involved in a forest fire event may help in optimizing fire management efforts. Given the complexity of the task, powerful computational tools are needed for predicting the amount of area that will be burned during a forest fire.

Federal fire management plans are essential implementation guides for the management of wildland fire on federal lands. Recent changes in federal fire policy implementation guidance and fire science information suggest the need for substantial changes in federal fire management plans of the United States.

Thinning of conifers followed by pile burning has become a popular treatment to reduce fuel loads in the Lake Tahoe Basin, USA. However, concern has been voiced about burning within or near riparian areas because of the potential effect on nutrient release and, ultimately, lake water quality.

Fire is one of the most important natural disturbance processes in the western United States and ecosystems differ markedly with respect to their ecological and evolutionary relationships with fire.

The risk of bark beetle outbreaks is widely predicted to increase because of a warming climate that accelerates temperature-driven beetle population growth and drought stress that impairs host tree defenses.

Reference ecological conditions offer important context for land managers as they assess the condition of their landscapes and provide benchmarks for desired future conditions. State-and-transition simulation models (STSMs) are commonly used to estimate reference conditions that can be used to evaluate current ecosystem conditions and to guide land management decisions and activities.

The implementation of US federal forest restoration programs on national forests is a complex process that requires balancing diverse socioecological goals with project economics.

Although disturbances such as fire and native insects can contribute to natural dynamics of forest health, exceptional droughts, directly and in combination with other disturbance factors, are pushing some temperate forests beyond thresholds of sustainability.

Linked atmospheric and wildfire changes will complicate future management of native coldwater fishes in fire-pronelandscapes, and new approaches to management that incorporate uncertainty are needed to address this challenge.

Aim Studies of fire activity along environmental gradients have been undertaken, but the results of such studies have yet to be integrated with fire-regime analysis. We characterize fire-regime components along climate gradients and a gradient of human influence.