Climate & Fire & Adaptation
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Read workshop summary.
Workshop purpose: Identify fire science and management needs and discuss tools and approaches to natural resource assessments and adaptation strategies for fire dynamics in future climates in Southwest (DOI Regions 8 & 10 [CA, NV, AZ]) bioregions.
Take-Aways:
Provide awareness of tools needed for decision-making in an uncertain future
Generate a list of new science actions to meet fire needs for practitioners/planners in future, non-analog landscapes and communities
Suggest how we might address and accomplish these identified needs going forward
Exchange Information
Make connections
This four-hour, virtual Summit was an abbreviated, rescheduled version of ‘Building Bridges and Solutions: Partners in Facing Fire-Science Challenges’ that was cancelled in April due to COVID-19. We assembled scientists and fire practitioners/leaders in an interagency effort to identify fire science and management needs and to discuss decision-making tools and approaches that address resource assessments and adaptation strategies for fire dynamics in future climates in the Southwest (Department of Interior [DOI] Regions 8 and 10 [CA, NV, AZ]). This overriding goal threaded together the Summit’s talks, Q&A, and break-out sessions. Speakers from various agencies, institutes, and academia focused on fire management and planning in future non-analog landscapes and climate-fire-ecosystem impact relationships in western forest (e.g., mixed-conifer, subalpine), desert (hot and cold, grassland, pinyon-juniper, sage-steppe), and Mediterranean/chaparral bioregions. Syntheses from talks, Mentimeter-conducted discussions, and break-out groups on management and actionable-science needs will be summarized in a white paper and posted on the Southwest, Great Basin, and California Fire Science Exchange websites. Let’s work together to address fire science and management in an uncertain future!
View article.
Wildland research, management, and policy in western democracies have long relied on concepts of equilibrium: succession, sustained yield, stable age or species compositions, fire return intervals, and historical range of variability critically depend on equilibrium assumptions. Not surprisingly, these largely static concepts form the basis for societal expectations, dominant management paradigms, and environmental legislation. Knowledge generation has also assumed high levels of stasis, concentrating on correlational patterns with the expectation that these patterns would be reliably transferrable. Changes in climate, the introduction of large numbers of exotic organisms, and anthropogenic land conversion are leading to unprecedented changes in disturbance regimes and landscape composition. Importantly, these changes are largely non-reversable; once introduced exotic species are seldom eradicated, climates will continue to warm for the foreseeable future, and many types of land conversion cannot be easily undone.
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Studies such as those highlighted in this Research Topic showcase that models provide advances in understanding and provide outcomes that can inform management while being critically challenged and improved by collaborations with field practitioners. Ongoing changes in environmental and societal landscapes and their collective impacts on fire regimes reinforces the need to develop tools that provide guidance how fire management can be used to mitigate fire risk. Bringing together modelers, field ecologists, managers, and practitioners to share their respective knowledge will not only facilitate the development of effective adaptation strategies but also create better science. As Thomas Kuhn simply stated it, the answers you get depend upon the questions you ask and managers do have many questions for the scientists.
Webinar recording.
Climatology Research Professor Tim Brown, also director of the Western Regional Climate Center, will discuss how weather and climate influence fire in Nevada.
Firewise landscaping, May 10, 11:30–1 PDT, Webinar recording
- This webinar is presented with the University’s Wendy Hanson Mazet, Certified Arborist, and Extension Plant Diagnostician. She has expertise in horticulture, arboriculture, noxious weeds, and vegetable and low water use gardening.
Wildfire evacuation preparedness, May 13, 11:30–1 PDT, Webinar recording
- This webinar is presented with the University’s Osher Life Learning Institute, a member-driven organization offering short-term educational experiences for older adults in northern Nevada. Deputy Emergency Manager Jason Danen, with the Carson City Fire Department, will speak about emergency notification systems such as Code Red and other forms of communication to the public during a wildfire. In addition, Skyland Fire Adapted Communities’ Leader and Douglas County Community Emergency Response Team Member Ann Grant will discuss items to prepare for an evacuation go bag and a stay box.
Perspectives of a wildland fire investigator, May 18, 11:30–1 PDT, Webinar recording
- Fire Mitigation and Education Specialist/Fire Trespass Coordinator Bradley Milam, with the Bureau of Land Management, will share wildfire investigation experiences. Forest Fire Prevention Officer Jennifer Diamond, with the U.S. Forest Service – Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest, will share some fire prevention tips.
The timeline of climate, weather and fire, June 10, 11:30–1 PDT, Webinar recording
- Climatology Research Professor Tim Brown, also director of the Western Regional Climate Center, will discuss how weather and climate influence fire in Nevada.
Protect, prevent and prepare with NV energy, June 24, 12–1:30 PDT, Powerpoint presentation
- Natural Disaster Protection Plan Director James Saavdra and Director of Delivery Operations Zeina Randall, both with NV Energy, will discuss how NV Energy is working with customers and partners using innovative strategies to reduce the risk of wildfire to Nevadans.
Wildfire smoke and health, July 8, 11:30– 1 PDT, Webinar recording
- Meteorologist and Public Information Officer Chris Smallcomb, from the National Weather Service – Reno office, will discuss smoke forecasting and models used to predict smoke. Air Quality Specialist Brendan Schnieder, with the Washoe County Health District’s Air Quality Management Division, will discuss wildfire smoke and health impacts.
Home hardening Q&A, Aug. 12, 11:30– 1 PDT, Webinar recording
- Living With Fire will host a question-and-answer workshop with Steve Quarles, who is both University of California Cooperative Extension Advisor Emeritus and the retired Chief Scientist for Wildfire and Durability, Insurance Institute for Business & Home Safety Research Center. The session will focus on “home hardening,” defined as building or retrofitting homes to withstand wildfire. Watch a previous presentation on this topic online.
Reseeding and flood after wildfire, Sept. 9, 11:30–1 PDT, Webinar recording
- Forester Anna Higgins with the Nevada Division of Forestry, Ecologist Mark Freese with the Nevada Department of Wildlife, and Project Manager Danae Olson with the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers will discuss reseeding landscapes, and preparing for potential flood after wildfire.
Prescribed fire in Tahoe and Nevada, Oct. 14, 11:30–1 PDT, Webinar registration
- Fuels Management Officer Keegan Schafer with Tahoe Douglas Fire Protection District and Forest Fuels and Vegetation Program Manager Duncan Leao with the U.S. Forest Service – Humboldt-Toiyabe National Forest will discuss prescribed fire and projects in the Lake Tahoe Basin and Nevada.
View abstracts.
These abstracts of recent papers on rangeland management in the West were prepared by Charlie Clements, Rangeland Scientist, USDA Agricultural Research Service, Reno, NV.
Summit registration and recordings.
Presentations will be April 14, 21, and 28 and May 5 and 12 at 10 am PDT.
Wildfire ravaged much of the western United States in 2020. Towns were destroyed, homes and businesses evacuated, forests incinerated, and lives lost. In Oregon, vast swaths of rural communities like Talent and Detroit were devastated by sweeping megafires. But every Oregonian was impacted by widespread evacuations, life-threatening smoke, damage to vineyards and other crops, and staggering costs siphoning critical tax dollars away from other essential public services. As with all matters related to climate change, the greatest impacts were on our most vulnerable communities: low-income families, communities of color, the sick, the elderly, and the young. These megafires also accelerated their climate effects, with carbon emissions from wildfires in the U.S. alone increasing 30% over the previous year. The 2020 season was the latest record-breaking year in the West, continuing a 20-year trend that is only worsening. But there is hope. As wildfire impacts broaden, so has the coalition of parties seeking solutions. Small town mayors and tribal leaders, experts in public health and social justice, CEOs and scientists are speaking up. World Forestry Center is convening representatives from this broadening coalition in a five-part virtual summit focused on the Oregon example.
View article.
The relative influence of climate change and fire exclusion vary with soil moisture, which itself is influenced by climate and local topography:
- Burn probability along a soil aridity gradient for Trail Creek and Johnson Creek, with and without climate change, and with and without fire exclusion. Climate change increased burn probability by drying fuels in the most mesic locations (i.e., locations where temporally averaged soil moisture was high; see difference between blue and orange lines, highlighted by the upward pointing arrow). In the most arid locations, climate change promoted drought stress and reduced fine fuel loads, which in turn reduced burn probability.
- Climate change increased burn probability and led to larger, more frequent fires in locations where soil aridity was relatively low (i.e., time-averaged soil moisture >35%).
- In the most arid locations (i.e., time-averaged soil moisture <25%), climate change promoted drought stress and reduced fine fuel loads, which in turn reduced burn probability.
- In locations with intermediate soil aridity (25-35%), the effects of climate change and fire suppression varied in response to local trade-offs between aridity (which makes fuels more flammable) and productivity (which increases fuel loads).
Even within watersheds, at fine scales, risk management must be spatially and temporally explicit to optimize effects
Conference website.
On April 6-8, 2021 the University of Washington’s Climate Impacts Group hosted the 11th Northwest Climate Conference (NWCC) as a fully virtual conference. This conference has provided a networking and learning community for practitioners, scientists, tribal members, and community organizers interested in climate change impacts and adaptation in the Northwest for over a decade. The NWCC is committed to supporting equitable climate adaptation outcomes and building equity and diversity in climate science, policy, and adaptation practice. We encourage our conference attendees and presenters to advance the conversation around climate justice both as a stand alone topic and across the many other topics and themes profiled in the conference. If you are working to build a climate-resilient Northwest, this conference is for you.
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The 2015 Paris Agreement led to a number of studies that assessed the impact of the 1.5 °C and 2.0 °C increases in global temperature over preindustrial levels. However, those assessments have not actively investigated the impact of these levels of warming on fire weather. In view of a recent series of high-profile wildfire events worldwide, we access fire weather sensitivity based on a set of multi-model large ensemble climate simulations for these low-emission scenarios. The results indicate that the half degree difference between these two thresholds may lead to a significantly increased hazard of wildfire in certain parts of the world, particularly the Amazon, African savanna and Mediterranean. Although further experiments focused on human land use are needed to depict future fire activity, considering that rising temperatures are the most influential factor in augmenting the danger of fire weather, limiting global warming to 1.5 °C would alleviate some risk in these parts of the world.