The Influence of Burn Severity on Post-Fire Spectral Recovery of Three Fires in the Southern Rocky Mountains

Abstract

Increased wildfire activity and altered post-fire climate in the Southern Rocky Mountains has the potential to influence forest resilience. The Southern Rocky Mountains are a leading edge of climate change and have experienced record-breaking fires in recent years. The change in post-fire regeneration and forest resilience could potentially include future ecological trajectories. In this paper, we examined patterns of post-fire spectral recovery using Landsat time series. Additionally, we utilized random forest models to analyze the impact of climate and burn severity on three fire events in the Southern Rocky Mountains. Fifteen years following the fires, none of the burned stands fully recovered to their pre-fire spectral states. The results suggested that burn severity significantly impacted post-fire spectral recovery, but that influence may decrease as time since fire increases. The biggest difference in forest recovery was among fire events, indicating that post-fire climate may be influential in post-fire recovery. The mean and minimum growing-season temperatures were more significant to post-fire recovery than the variability in precipitation, which is consistent with field-based analysis. The present study indicated that, as warming continues, there may be changes in forest density where forests are not regenerating to their pre-fire spectral states. Additionally, this study emphasizes how high-elevation forests continue to regenerate after fires, but that regeneration is markedly affected by post-fire climate.

Evaluation of the Ability of SLSTR (Sentinel-3B) and MODIS (Terra) Images to Detect Burned Areas Using Spatial-Temporal Attributes and SVM Classification

“…Thus, detection using SWIRs (short and long SWIR) tends to decrease, as the distinct spectral signatures of water and burned areas decrease beyond the NIR region. There, water tends to absorb longer wavelengths almost completely, while the reflectance of the burned forest remains fairly constant or shows a slightly increasing trend [78,79]. In implementing the SWIR band for the detection of multi-temporal forest fires in the Rocky Mountains in Mexico, it was observed to have high discriminatory power in changes in post-fire recovery, while Alcaras et al [80] observed excellent SWIR performance, both in the case of the unitemporal (post-fire) and bitemporal (pre-fire and post-fire in comparison) approaches.…”

Recovery and resilience of European temperate forests after large and severe disturbances

“…These findings provide a key baseline for assessing future recovery and resilience following the recent occurrence of widespread disturbance in the region and in anticipation of future conditions characterized by increasing heat and drought stress. A widely used approach to study forest recovery, particularly after large-scale disturbances, is remote sensing (Guz et al, 2022;Rodman et al, 2021;White et al, 2022). Post-disturbance recovery has been assessed in European forests using satellite imagery (e.g.…”

“…A widely used approach to study forest recovery, particularly after large‐scale disturbances, is remote sensing (Guz et al., 2022; Rodman et al., 2021; White et al., 2022). Post‐disturbance recovery has been assessed in European forests using satellite imagery (e.g.…”

Short-Term Effects and Vegetation Response after a Megafire in a Mediterranean Area

“…Consequently, much research has been focused on the effects of fire on vegetation and soil, e.g., [3,[30][31][32][33]; post-fire vegetation dynamics, e.g., [1,2,34]; the effects of fire on biodiversity, e.g., [35][36][37]; landscape recovery and fire-risk mitigation, e.g., [38][39][40]; methods based on remote sensing to quantify burned areas, severity levels, vegetation recovery rates and effects of fires on the carbon cycle, e.g., [19,[41][42][43][44]. The aim of all these studies can be summarized as the need to comprehend the complex roles and effects of wildfires on ecological systems, the repercussion on human life, and to prevent or mitigate the negative consequences, particularly from the perspective of climate change.…”

“…Although several studies have investigated the post-fire vegetation recovery in different terrestrial ecosystems, e.g., [42,[47][48][49][50][51][52][53][54], there have not been many studies that specifically explored the response of natural vegetation in a relatively short span of time after a fire in the context of Mediterranean landscapes. Particularly, in the first years after a fire, vegetation is heavily reduced or simplified in its structure and diversity [2,51], landscapes are affected in their ecological complexity [55] and identity value [56], and soil runoff and erosion increase by several times compared to natural conditions [18].…”