Fire Regimes
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Study results suggest increasing the frequency of disturbances (a lower disturbance return interval [DRI]) would reduce the percentage of high-severity fire on landscape but not the total amount of wildfire in general. However, a higher DRI reduced carbon storage and sequestration, particularly in management strategies that emphasized prescribed fire over hand or mechanical fuel treatments.
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Presented by: Dan Neary
Wildfires can produce significant hydrological and ecological impacts on forest, woodland, and grassland ecosystems depending on fire size, severity, duration, timing, fuel loads, and weather conditions. In the past several decades, wildfire conditions have changed from previous ones in the 20th Century. Wildfires are now burning larger areas in hotter, windier, and drier weather. In addition, the timeframe for these fires has expanded by four months in some regions to 12 months in fire-prone states like California. These large fires, known as megafires (greater than 40,000 acres) are burning more wildland areas every year. Some reach the giga-fire classification (405,000+ acres) with increasing frequency. These trends are contributing to increased desertification of forest lands. This presentation examines the role of these large fires in producing desertification of wildland ecosystems.
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In this deep dive webinar, Dr. Becky Kerns and collaborating scientists will present and synthesize results from a Joint Fire Science funded project aimed at understanding the current and future Ventenata dubia (ventenata) invasion in the Blue Mountains Ecoregion. Wildfires in 2014 and 2015 in the ecoregion reportedly spread in an unusual fashion owing to this invasive annual grass. Concern was raised that ventenata might be a “game-changer” for wildfire. Results from our studies show that ventenata has ecosystem transformation potential and influences landscape-scale fire across the ecoregion. In this webinar we report these findings and the management implications, as well as place our results in the context of other plant invasion research. The webinar includes 90 minutes of scientific presentations with short Q&A, and ends with a 30-minute wrap up and panel discussion. Talks will adhere to the following agenda to allow attendees to join and leave the meeting for specific talks, if desired.
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Description: Changing wildfire regimes are causing rapid shifts in forests worldwide. In particular, forested landscapes that burn repeatedly in relatively quick succession may be at risk of conversion when pre-fire vegetation cannot recover between fires. Fire refugia (areas that burn less frequently or severely than the surrounding landscape) support post-fire ecosystem recovery and the persistence of vulnerable species in fire-prone landscapes. Observed and projected fire-induced forest losses highlight the need to understand where and why forests persist in refugia through multiple fires. This research need is particularly acute in the Klamath-Siskiyou ecoregion of southwest Oregon and northwest California, USA, where expected increases in fire activity and climate warming may result in the loss of up to one-third of the region’s conifer forests, which are the most diverse in western North America. We model the key controls on fire refugia occurrence and persistence through one, two, and three fire events over a 32-year period. Refugia that persisted through three fire events appeared to be partially entrained by landscape features that offered protection from fire, suggesting that topographic variability may be an important stabilizing factor as forests pass through successive fire filters. Results from this study could inform management strategies designed to protect fire-resistant portions of biologically and topographically diverse landscapes.
Presenter: Meg Krawchuk, Oregon State University
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Fire exclusion caused profound changes in many western North American forested landscapes, leaving them vulnerable to seasonal increases in drought and wildfire. As climate warms, the likelihood of severe, large-scale disturbance increases. There is generally strong agreement that wildfires, insects and disease are rapidly changing western landscapes and that the pace and scale of adaptive management is insufficient. However, confusion persists regarding the need for proactive management. In three articles, this Invited Feature evaluates the strength of scientific evidence regarding changing forest conditions, fire regimes, and science-based strategies for adapting western forests to climate change and future wildfires.
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Our study area in northeastern California on the Lassen, Modoc and Plumas National Forests has experienced recent large mixed-severity wildfires where aspen was present, providing an opportunity to study the re-introduction of fire. We observed two time periods; a 52-year absence of fire from 1941 to 1993 preceding a 24-year period of wildfire activity from 1993 to 2017. We utilized aerial photos and satellite imagery to delineate aspen stands and assess conifer cover percent. We chose aspen stands in areas where wildfires overlapped (twice-burned), where only a single wildfire burned, and areas that did not burn within the recent 24-year period. We observed these same stands within the first period of fire exclusion for comparison (i.e., 1941–1993). In the absence of fire, all aspen stand areas declined and all stands experienced increases in conifer composition. After wildfire, stands that burned experienced a release from conifer competition and increased in stand area. Stands that burned twice or at high severity experienced a larger removal of conifer competition than stands that burned once at low severity, promoting expansion of aspen stand area. Stands with less edge:area ratio also expanded in area more with fire present. Across both time periods, stand movement, where aspen stand footprints were mostly in new areas compared to footprints of previous years, was highest in smaller stands. In the fire exclusion period, smaller stands exhibited greater loss of area and changes in location (movement) than in the return of fire period, highlighting their vulnerability to loss via succession to conifers in the absence of disturbances that provide adequate growing space for aspen over time.
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The Fireshed Registry is a geospatial dashboard and decision tool built to organize information about wildfire transmission to communities and monitor progress towards risk reduction for communities from management investments. The concept behind the Fireshed Registry is to identify and map the source of risk rather than what is at risk across all lands in the continental United States. While the Fireshed Registry was organized around mapping the source of fire risk to communities, the framework does not preclude the assessment of other resource management priorities and trends such as water, fish and aquatic or wildlife habitat, or recreation. The Fireshed Registry is also a multi-scale decision tool for quantifying, prioritizing, and geospatially displaying wildfire transmission to buildings in adjacent or nearby communities.
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No significant change was projected for the number of human-caused fire ignitions, but we projected a 14% reduction in lightning-caused ignitions under future conditions. Mean fire sizes were 31% and 22% larger under future conditions (2031–2060) for human and lightning-caused ignitions, respectively. All but one climate model projected increased frequency of record-breaking events relative to the contemporary period, with the largest future fires being about twice the size of those of the contemporary period. This work contributes to understanding the role of lightning- and human-caused fires on future fire regimes and can help inform successful adaptation strategies in this landscape.
Webinar recording.
Overview: This webinar shares results of a recent study of contemporary fire regimes over a 32-year period (1985-2017) in the Madrean Sky Islands of the U.S. and México. During the study period 335 fires burned approximately 28% of the study area, with re-burns occurring on over 25% of the burned areas. The greatest variation in fire regimes, including fire size, frequency, and severity was observed in places with the most diverse human activities and land uses – particularly in the mountain ranges adjacent to the U.S.- México border. Average severity of recent fires was low despite some extreme outliers in cooler, wetter environments. Fire frequency was also higher than historical expectations in these cool and wet environments that support forest types such as Spruce-Fir, indicating threats to these systems possibly attributable to drought and other factors. In cooler and wetter environments in more remote areas of México, pine-oak forests burned with fire frequencies close to historical. In contrast, fires were absent or infrequent across large expanses of lower elevation Woodlands and Grasslands due possibly to overgrazing, which reduces abundance and continuity of fine fuels needed to carry fire. Our findings provide a new depiction of fire regimes in the Sky Islands that can help inform fire management, restoration, and regional conservation planning, fostered by local and traditional knowledge and collaboration among landowners and managers.
Presenter: Dr. Miguel Villarreal
Co-authors: José M. Iniguez, Aaron D. Flesch, Jamie S. Sanderlin, Citlali Cortés Montaño, Caroline R. Conrad, Sandra L. Haire
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This study presents a generalizable functional diversity approach for measuring pyrodiversity, which incorporates multiple fire regime traits and can be applied across scales. Further, we tested the socioecological drivers of pyrodiversity among forests of the western United States. Largely mediated by burn activity, pyrodiversity was positively associated with actual evapotranspiration, climate water deficit, wilderness designation, elevation and topographic roughness but negatively with human population density. These results indicate pyrodiversity is highest in productive areas with pronounced annual dry periods and minimal fire suppression. This work can facilitate future pyrodiversity studies including whether and how it begets biodiversity among taxa, regions and fire regimes.