Wildfires are an inherent part of the landscape in many parts of the world; however, they often impose substantial economic burdens on human populations where they occur, both in terms of impacts and of management costs.
Wildfire activity is predicted to increase with global climate change, resulting in longer fire seasons and larger areas burned. The emissions from fires are highly variable owing to differences in fuel, burning conditions and other external environmental factors. The smoke that is generated can impact human populations spread over vast geographical areas.
Wildfires are increasing in frequency and severity as a result of climate change in many ecosystems; however, effects of altered disturbance regimes on wildlife remain poorly quantified. Here, we leverage an unexpected opportunity to investigate how fire affects the occupancy and abundance of a climate-sensitive habitat specialist, the American pika (Ochotona princeps).
An increase in mega-fires and wildfires is a global issue that is expected to become worse with climate change. Fuel treatments are often recommended to moderate behaviour and decrease severity of wildfires; however, the extensive nature of rangelands limits the use of many treatments.
The Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity project is a comprehensive fire atlas for the United States that includes perimeters and severity data for all fires greater than a particular size (~400 ha in the western US, and ~200 ha in the eastern US). Although the database was derived for management purposes, the scientific community has expressed interest in its research capacity.
Altered fuel conditions coupled with changing climate have disrupted fire regimes of forests historically characterised by high-frequency and low-to-moderate-severity fire. Managers use fuel treatments to abate undesirable fire behaviour and effects.
Mechanical fuel treatments are a common pre-fire strategy for reducing wildfire hazard that alters fuel structure by converting live canopy fuels to a compacted layer of dead surface fuels. Current knowledge concerning their effectiveness, however, comes primarily from forest-dominated ecosystems.
Convective instability can influence the behaviour of large wildfires. Because wildfires modify the temperature and moisture of air in their plumes, instability calculations using ambient conditions may not accurately represent convective potential for some fire plumes.
Results from a laboratory-scale investigation of a fire spreading on the windward face of a triangular-section hill of variable shape with wind perpendicular to the ridgeline are reported. They confirm previous observations that the fire enlarges its lateral spread after reaching the ridgeline, entering the leeward face with a much wider front.
Wildfire-potential information products are designed to support decisions for prefire staging of movable wildfire suppression resources across geographic locations.