Proportion of forest area burned at high-severity increases with increasing forest cover and connectivity in western US watersheds

Francis, Emily; Pourmohammadi, Pariya; Steel, Zachary L.; Collins, Brandon M.; Hurteau, Matthew D.

doi:10.1007/s10980-023-01710-1

Cited by 10 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 78 publications

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“…This assumption is well supported in the northwestern United States within contemporary fires observed in the satellite record (1985–2020; Buonanduci et al, 2023), despite this period being marked by increasing aridity, annual area burned, and fire event sizes (Juang et al, 2022). As fire activity continues to increase, however, fuel limitations may begin to strengthen in some regions, potentially altering fire size and severity through reductions in fuel availability and/or connectivity (Abatzoglou et al, 2021; Francis et al, 2023; Kennedy et al, 2021). It is possible that strengthening fuel limitations in such regions could also erode the stationarity in scaling relationships that has been observed over the contemporary record, with the range of high‐severity patches shifting toward smaller sizes and more heterogeneous shapes at any given fire size.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Few large or many small fires: Using spatial scaling of severe fire to quantify effects of fire‐size distribution shifts

Buonanduci,

Donato,

Halofsky

et al. 2024

Ecosphere

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As wildfire activity increases and fire‐size distributions potentially shift in many forested regions worldwide, anticipating the spatial patterns of burn severity expected with future fire activity is critical for ecological understanding and informing management and policy. Because spatial patterns of burn severity are influenced by a complex mixture of drivers, they remain difficult to predict for any given burned landscape. At broader extents, however, spatial scaling relationships relating high‐severity patch size and shape to overall fire size, when combined with scenarios regarding regional area burned and fire‐size distributions, offer a means to anticipate the spatial configuration of burn severity in future fires. Here, leveraging a satellite burn‐severity dataset for 1615 fire events occurring across the northwest United States between 1985 and 2020, we present an approach for simulating expected patch‐level burn‐severity patterns at the scale of a region or fire regime of interest. We demonstrate this approach in a historically climate‐limited fire regime within the Pacific Northwest, USA, where relatively infrequent but large and severe fires shape biomass‐rich forests, and where fire potential is projected to increase as summer fire seasons become warmer and drier. We quantify how, for a given total burned area, the range of cumulative burn‐severity patterns is expected to vary with the size distributions of fire events. Our results illustrate how shifts in fire‐size distributions toward larger fire events will lead to increasingly large high‐severity burn patches with interior areas that are increasingly far from unburned seed sources following fire. In contrast, the same total area burned in more numerous but smaller fire events will result in qualitatively different cumulative patterns of burn severity, characterized by smaller high‐severity patches and closer proximity to postfire seed sources across burned landscapes. These results have important implications in forested regions, informing management actions ranging from prefire planning (e.g., fire response preparedness) to real‐time decision‐making (e.g., fire suppression vs. managed wildfire use) and postfire responses (e.g., replanting to restore tree cover and/or promoting early‐seral habitat). The approach we present is generalizable and can be applied across regions and fire regimes to anticipate potential future fire effects.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Few large or many small fires: Using spatial scaling of severe fire to quantify effects of fire‐size distribution shifts

Buonanduci,

Donato,

Halofsky

et al. 2024

Ecosphere

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“…The forest fire spread hazard refers to the possibility of a forest fire spreading (assuming that a forest fire has already begun) [1][2][3][4][5][6]. Under the influence of climate change and land use changes, the occurrence probability and intensity of extreme fires have increased significantly [7][8][9][10][11][12][13]. Under the combined action of flammable vegetation types, special dangerous terrains, and harsh meteorological conditions, the probability of forest fires spreading rapidly and out of control has increased significantly, seriously threatening forest resources and the habitats of wild animals and plants, as well as life and property security and homeland ecological security [14][15][16][17][18].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Forest Fire Spread Hazard and Landscape Pattern Characteristics in the Mountainous District, Beijing

Wang,

Li,

Lai

et al. 2023

Forests

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Objective: This study established an index system for assessing forest fire spread hazards and conducted a forest fire spread hazard assessment in the mountainous district of Beijing (including Fangshan, Mentougou, Changping, Yanqing, Huairou, Miyun, and Pinggu). The relationship between forested landscape spatial pattern and forest fire spread hazard was explored; this method provided the basis for the establishment of a landscape forest fire security guarantee system. Methods: The forest fire spread hazard assessment index system was constructed from four aspects: forest fuel, meteorological factors, topographic factors, and fire behavior. The weighted comprehensive evaluation method and area-weighted average method were used to calculate the forest fire spread hazard indices at the subcompartment scale and township scale. Moran’s I index was selected as the spatial autocorrelation index to analyze the autocorrelation degree and spatial distribution of the forest fire spread hazard index. Eleven representative landscape pattern indices were selected to analyze the main landscape spatial pattern affecting forest fire spread hazard by correlation analysis and principal component analysis. Results: (1) The areas with high, medium–high, medium-low, and low forest fire spread hazard grades accounted for 39.87%, 33.10%, 11.37%, and 15.66% of the study area, respectively, at the subcompartment scale and for 52.36%, 22.58%, 18.39%, and 6.67% of the study area, respectively, at the township scale. (2) The forest fire spread hazard index results obtained at the subcompartment and township scales in the Mountainous District of Beijing showed a spatial agglomeration distribution law. (3) The forest fire spread hazard was influenced mainly by landscape diversity (SHDI and PRD), landscape aggregation (AI, CONTAG, and PD), and landscape area (TA). Conclusions: The overall forest fire spread hazard in the mountainous district of Beijing showed a gradual increase from plains to mountainous areas. The land types of the high-spread hazard subcompartment mainly included general shrubbery and coniferous forestlands, and the dominant species in the high-spread hazard arbor forest subcompartment were mainly Platycladus orientalis, Pinus tabuliformis, and Quercus mongolica.

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Managing fire‐prone forests in a time of decreasing carbon carrying capacity

Hurteau,

Goodwin,

Marsh

et al. 2024

Frontiers in Ecol & Environ

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Changing climatic conditions are increasing overstory tree mortality in forests globally. This restructuring of the distribution of biomass is making already flammable forests more combustible, posing a major challenge for managing the transition to a lower biomass state. In western US dry conifer forests, tree density resulting from over a century of fire‐exclusion practices has increased the risk of high‐severity wildfire and susceptibility to climate‐driven mortality. Reducing dead fuel loads will require new approaches to mitigate risk to the remaining live trees by preparing forests to withstand future wildfire. Here, we used data from the Teakettle Experimental Forest in California to evaluate different prescribed fire burn frequencies and their impact on accumulated dead fuels after a 4‐year drought. Increasing burn frequency could reduce surface fuel build‐up but comes with additional challenges that will require creativity and experimentation to overcome.

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Proportion of forest area burned at high-severity increases with increasing forest cover and connectivity in western US watersheds

Cited by 10 publications

References 78 publications

Few large or many small fires: Using spatial scaling of severe fire to quantify effects of fire‐size distribution shifts

Few large or many small fires: Using spatial scaling of severe fire to quantify effects of fire‐size distribution shifts

Forest Fire Spread Hazard and Landscape Pattern Characteristics in the Mountainous District, Beijing

Managing fire‐prone forests in a time of decreasing carbon carrying capacity

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