Research and Publications
View brief.
In this analysis, we tested the influence of the suppression model on FSim simulations by running simulations in four regions with a range of nine suppression factors, and one simulation run without the suppression model. To test whether the suppression model resulted in fire shapes that were more similar to historical observed fires, we calculated six metrics of shape complexity from the simulated wildfire perimeters. We then compared these shape metrics to shape metrics of the historical wildfire perimeters in each region. This established that the suppression model contributed to closer agreement in shape metrics between simulated and historical fire perimeters, and that the suppression factor where this agreement was maximized differed between simulation areas.
View synthesis.
This report synthesizes current (2024) science-based knowledge related to the impacts of climate change on big sagebrush vegetation in Western North America. This effort was conducted through the U.S. Geological Survey working with the Bureau of Land Management as part of multiple science syntheses to aid management agencies developing environmental impacts assessments in response to human-related or caused events. This report reviews the potential impacts climate change may have on sagebrush vegetation and related management decisions. The body of the synthesis introduces the diverse impacts of climate change across the region by first focusing directly on what climate change may entail in terms of altered temperature and precipitation patterns. The report then discusses how these changes could likely affect individual plant species based on experimental results and scale the impacts to species distributions and community composition. The synthesis section ends by surveying efforts to model potential future changes in habitat. The report goes on to link the synthesis conclusions to individual land uses or land management decisions, such as forage resources, restoration or fuel treatment. Finally, the report provides a section that discusses the pros and cons of available datasets that model the potential future of vegetation in the sagebrush region.
View field brief.
This brief shares insights from a June 4, 2024, prescribed fire field day hosted by the US Forest Service (USFS) and Great Basin Fire Science Exchange (GBFSE). The field day highlighted burn plan development in the Wildland Urban Interface (WUI) of Whites Creek on the Humboldt Toiyabe National Forest. It also serves as an example of the types of relationship-building and communication opportunities and products the GBFSE makes possible through regional fire management partnerships.
View article.
To better understand the social acceptability of core features of ISM in the United States, we conducted an online experiment with vignettes describing hypothetical but realistic ISM scenarios, varying targeted taxon (insect or plant), control method (mechanical, chemical and biological), risk severity (low and high) and type of non-target risk (to humans or native species). Not surprisingly, management with low risk was most acceptable, particularly for mechanical control. In high-risk scenarios, only mechanical control was acceptable, but only by a slim majority of respondents. Overall, chemical and biological controls showed low levels of acceptability. Surprisingly, there was no significant difference in how respondents ranked risks to people and risks to native species. Beyond differences in acceptability between management factors, we also find that the acceptability of management and attitudes towards risk were associated with respondents’ demographic characteristics. Overall, our findings indicate that widespread acceptability of ISM should not be assumed. While management activities representing low-risk scenarios find some support in the public, our results highlight a disconnect between the effectiveness of common management methods and their social acceptability. Our findings highlight the need for evidence-guided ISM, which includes evidence of harmful impacts of introduced species, as well as risks and benefits of management activities, as one potential way to increase the social acceptability of non-native species management.
View synthesis.
From the 33 studies included, three main estimation approaches emerged: chemical extraction, thresholding, and integration of satellite and fire-specific data (e.g., smoke plumes and fire perimeters). Most studies combined ground-based monitor data, satellite-derived aerosol optical depth, and explanatory data like meteorology and land use. The three public datasets indicated that in California, wildfire-specific PM2.5 contributed 11.2%-36.9% of total PM2.5 in 2010 and 13.7%-21.2% in 2018 with stronger agreement in 2018. Correlations were stronger in Modoc County (no monitors) (0.44-0.51 in 2010; 0.79-0.88 in 2018) than in Los Angeles County (densely populated area, 20 EPA monitors, where correlations ranged from 0.19-0.21 in 2010 and 0.54-0.79 in 2018). Overall, the datasets estimating total PM2.5 were more consistent than wildfire-specific PM2.5 estimates.
View article.
We quantified active management and wildfire severity across yellow pine and mixed conifer (YPMC) forests in the Sierra Nevada of California over a 22-year period (2001–2022). We did not detect increases in the area treated through time, but the area of beneficial wildfire (low to moderate severity) increased substantially, exceeding active treatment area in 8 of 22 years. Overall, beneficial wildfire treated ~17% more area than all treatments combined, and roughly four times more area than fire-related treatments alone. We then used disturbance history to evaluate resistance to high-severity wildfire and forest loss across the YPMC range. Of the 2.3 million ha YPMC of forests in 2001, 20% lost mature forests due to high-severity fire by 2022, which is nearly half of all YPMC area burned. Most of the landscape (47%) remains at risk of high-severity fire because it had no restorative disturbances, but 33% of the study area has some level of resistance to high-severity wildfire. In these areas, resistance will need to be enhanced and maintained over time via active management or managed wildfire, but these treatment needs will likely outpace capacity even under optimistic implementation scenarios. Given limited resources for implementing active management and the likelihood of a more fiery future, incorporating beneficial wildfire into landscape-level treatment planning has the potential to amplify the impact of active management treatments.
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Using a Delphi approach, whereby individual participants complete anonymous iterative surveys and provide feedback on group responses, wildfire management professionals in Arizona and New Mexico provided input on which incentives would have the greatest impact on use of “other than full suppression” OTFS strategies and how feasible implementation would be. Consistent public support from agency leadership, financial rewards for successful use of OTFS strategies, and allowing acres burned by OTFS wildfires to count toward regional treatment targets were among the most impactful in the eyes of participants. These results suggest that incentivizing OTFS management requires a combination of policy adjustment and agency alignment to better leverage wildfire for ecosystem restoration.
View factsheet.
This paper will explore the relationship of the climate-nature nexus to wildfire in four sections:
- Summarize the state of the science on how climate and ecosystem changes are exacerbating fire risk.
- Showcase opportunities where ecosystem services may be used to reduce fire hazard and support fire defences.
- Identify barriers to implementing such risk reduction measures.
- Propose policy, financial, and research tools where insurance sector risk expertise can support nature-positive wildfire mitigation at the landscape scale. This helps mitigate risk to support insurability
for the long haul.
View synthesis.
This paper does three things: (1) Identifies features correlated with structure loss. (2) Compares methods of characterizing structure susceptibility, including home assessments and emerging fire spread models. (3) Evaluates methods and open data sources used to measure these features. We find that relative feature importance varies widely among studies due to data limitations and scale issues. Built-environment fire spread models show limited inclusion of structure-level features. Additional research, model validation, improved data, and improved data collection methods are needed to bridge the gaps between primary research, susceptibility indices, and built-environment fire spread models. Advancing scalable methods for characterizing built-environment fuels and susceptibility will refine risk mitigation efforts globally.
View article.
A set of 435 severe injuries in wildland firefighters in the United States from 2019 to 2023 was classified by activity being performed, hazard encountered and injury severity. Statistical summaries were used to contextualize the data and to examine the frequency and severity of these injuries. Proportional odds models tested the impact of activity, region and fire complexity on injury severity. Aviation activities are associated with higher injury severity; there is no statistically significant difference in injury severity among other activities. Region and fire type do not impact injury severity. Injury frequency and severity vary among hazards and associated activities. Given the hazard mitigations in place, reducing injury frequency and severity may be challenging without clearly defined agency level risk tolerances.