fire severity

Adoption of the Northwest Forest Plan (NWFP) in 1994 marked a pivotal moment in federal forest management in the Pacific Northwest, shifting focus away from intensive timber harvest toward an ecosystem management approach that emphasized late successional and old forest habitat with the creation of a reserve network across moist and dry forest zones.

Background

Background

Background

Despite widespread concern over increases in wildfire severity, the mechanisms underlying this trend remain unclear, hampering our ability to mitigate the severity of future fires.

Area burned by wildfire has increased in western US forests and elsewhere over recent decades coincident with warmer and drier fire seasons. However, high–severity fire—fire that kills all or most trees—is arguably a more important metric of fire activity given its destabilizing influence on forest ecosystems and direct and indirect impacts to human communities.

Wildfire activity has accelerated with climate change, sparking concerns about uncharacteristic impacts on mature and old-growth forests containing large trees.

Warming and drying conditions are driving increases in wildfire size and annual area burned across the forests of British Columbia, Canada. The impact of increasing fire activity on these forests remains unclear as examination of concurrent changes to fire severity is lacking.

Background

Background