Assessing Landscape Vulnerability to Wildfire in the USA

Vaillant, Nicole M.; Kolden, Crystal A.; Smith, Alistair M. S.

doi:10.1007/s40725-016-0040-1

Cited by 21 publications

(21 citation statements)

References 121 publications

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“…Brown's transect data was used to survey all surface fuel pools; other figures display only those fuels above the 1000-h diameter threshold. CWD, coarse woody debris (≥ 7.62 cm diameter) ecosystem vulnerability and future heterogeneity of fire behavior and effects (Vaillant et al 2016.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Large-diameter trees dominate snag and surface biomass following reintroduced fire

et al. 2020

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The reintroduction of fire to landscapes where it was once common is considered a priority to restore historical forest dynamics, including reducing tree density and decreasing levels of woody biomass on the forest floor. However, reintroducing fire causes tree mortality that can have unintended ecological outcomes related to woody biomass, with potential impacts to fuel accumulation, carbon sequestration, subsequent fire severity, and forest management. In this study, we examine the interplay between fire and carbon dynamics by asking how reintroduced fire impacts fuel accumulation, carbon sequestration, and subsequent fire severity potential. Beginning pre-fire, and continuing 6 years post-fire, we tracked all live, dead, and fallen trees ≥ 1 cm in diameter and mapped all pieces of deadwood (downed woody debris) originating from tree boles ≥ 10 cm diameter and ≥ 1 m in length in 25.6 ha of an Abies concolor/Pinus lambertiana forest in the central Sierra Nevada, California, USA. We also tracked surface fuels along 2240 m of planar transects pre-fire, immediately post-fire, and 6 years post-fire. Six years after moderate-severity fire, deadwood ≥ 10 cm diameter was 73 Mg ha −1 , comprised of 32 Mg ha −1 that persisted through fire and 41 Mg ha −1 of newly fallen wood (compared to 72 Mg ha −1 pre-fire). Woody surface fuel loading was spatially heterogeneous, with mass varying almost four orders of magnitude at the scale of 20 m × 20 m quadrats (minimum, 0.1 Mg ha −1 ; mean, 73 Mg ha −1 ; maximum, 497 Mg ha −1). Wood from large-diameter trees (≥ 60 cm diameter) comprised 57% of surface fuel in 2019, but was 75% of snag biomass, indicating high contributions to current and future fuel loading. Reintroduction of fire does not consume all large-diameter fuel and generates high levels of surface fuels ≥ 10 cm diameter within 6 years. Repeated fires are needed to reduce surface fuel loading.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Large-diameter trees dominate snag and surface biomass following reintroduced fire

et al. 2020

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“…While there is widespread agreement that large fires are burning more frequently over greater extents across the western United States (Dennison et al 2014, Barbero et al 2015, the rate and pattern of heterogeneous consumption within fire perimeters at regional scales and over time is still relatively understudied , while in other parts of the globe fire activity is decreasing (Moreno et al 2014, Doerr and Sant ın 2016, Turco et al 2016. Until these patterns within fire perimeters are better defined, accurately modeling and predicting the impacts of localized fire mitigation and adaptation actions (such as forest management practices and ecological restoration efforts) on dynamic ecosystem services is not feasible (Smith et al 2016a, Vaillant et al 2016.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spatiotemporal patterns of unburned areas within fire perimeters in the northwestern United States from 1984 to 2014

et al. 2018

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Abstract. A warming climate, fire exclusion, and land cover changes are altering the conditions that produced historical fire regimes and facilitating increased recent wildfire activity in the northwestern United States. Understanding the impacts of changing fire regimes on forest recruitment and succession, species distributions, carbon cycling, and ecosystem services is critical, but challenging across broad spatial scales. One important and understudied aspect of fire regimes is the unburned area within fire perimeters; these areas can function as fire refugia across the landscape during and after wildfire by providing habitat and seed sources. With increasing fire activity, there is speculation that fire intensity and combustion completeness are also increasing, which we hypothesized would yield smaller unburned proportions and changes in fire refugia patterns. We sought to determine (1) whether the unburned proportion of wildfires decreased across the northwestern United States from 1984 to 2014 and (2) whether patterns of unburned patches were significantly different across ecoregions, land cover type, and land ownership. We utilized a Landsat-derived geospatial database of unburned islands within 2298 fires across the inland northwestern USA (including eastern Washington, eastern Oregon, and Idaho) from 1984 to 2014. We evaluated patterns of the total unburned proportion and spatial patterns of unburned patches of the fires across different ecoregions, land cover types, and land ownership. We found that unburned area proportion exhibited no change over the three decades, suggesting that recent trends in area burned and overall severity have not affected fire refugia, important to post-fire ecosystem recovery. There were ecoregional differences in mean unburned proportion, patch area, and patch density, suggesting influences of vegetation and topography on the formation of unburned area. These foundation findings suggest that complex drivers control unburned island formation, and yield insights to locate potential important fire refugia across the inland northwest.

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“…These higher fire frequencies and higher severities associated with very large fires will likely cause a shift in forest demographics towards younger populations (Thompson et al 2007;Lutz et al 2009b;Chmura et al 2011;Larson et al 2013;Lutz 2015), a trend that will be exacerbated by higher non-fire mortality rates for trees (van Mantgem et al 2009). This may lead to increased ecosystem vulnerability to wildfire (Vaillant et al 2016), including unexpected effects on seedlings and saplings that otherwise would have developed fire-resistant features, such as greater canopy height, increased bark thickness and deeper root systems (Bradstock and Myerscough 1988;Wade 1993;Smith et al 2014). In many grassland and savanna systems, fire exclusion and in some cases the adaptation of fire-resistant woody plants has led to an increase in abundance of those species (Ansley et al 2015).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Effects of fire radiative energy density dose on Pinus contorta and Larix occidentalis seedling physiology and mortality

Smith

Talhelm

Johnson

et al. 2017

Int. J. Wildland Fire

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Climate change is projected to exacerbate the intensity of heat waves and drought, leading to a greater incidence of large and high-intensity wildfires in forested ecosystems. Predicting responses of seedlings to such fires requires a process-based understanding of how the energy released during fires affects plant physiology and mortality. Understanding what fire ‘doses’ cause seedling mortality is important for maintaining grasslands or promoting establishment of desirable plant species. We conducted controlled laboratory combustion experiments on replicates of well-watered nursery-grown seedlings. We evaluated the growth, mortality and physiological response of Larix occidentalis and Pinus contorta seedlings to increasing fire radiative energy density (FRED) doses created using natural fuels with known combustion properties. We observed a general decline in the size and physiological performance of both species that scaled with increasing FRED dose, including decreases in leaf-level photosynthesis, seedling leaf area and diameter at root collar. Greater FRED dose increased the recovery time of chlorophyll fluorescence in the remaining needles. This study provides preliminary data on what level of FRED causes mortality in these two species, which can aid land managers in identifying strategies to maintain (or eliminate) woody seedlings of interest.

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Assessing Landscape Vulnerability to Wildfire in the USA

Cited by 21 publications

References 121 publications

Large-diameter trees dominate snag and surface biomass following reintroduced fire

Large-diameter trees dominate snag and surface biomass following reintroduced fire

Spatiotemporal patterns of unburned areas within fire perimeters in the northwestern United States from 1984 to 2014

Effects of fire radiative energy density dose on Pinus contorta and Larix occidentalis seedling physiology and mortality

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