Previous fires can influence the behavior subsequent wildfires. In many cases, previous fires have been shown to reduce the spread and severity of subsequent wildfires on the landscape, thereby serving as a natural fuel treatment. The influence exerted by previous fires varies with climate, location, time since fire, and vegetation, among other factors.
An understanding of the potential impacts of previous fires on the characteristics of subsequent fires is important in informing land management decisions, developing fuel management strategies, and allocating fire-fighting resources. The increasing size and extent of wildfires in the Northern Rockies region over the past several decades makes this topic even more relevant as fires become more and more likely to burn into previously burned areas.
The resources curated here contain the most recent and applicable information on this issue.
This hot topic was developed in partnership with the University of Idaho.
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- Short-interval high severity reburns change the playing field for forest recovery
- What makes a resilient landscape? Climate, fire, and forests in the Northern Rockies
- Effectiveness and longevity of wildland fire as a fuel treatment
- 40 years of wilderness fire in the Selway-Bitterroot and Frank Church-River of No Return
Technical Reports/White Papers
- Does repeated high severity fire in dry mixed conifer forests homogenize vegetation characteristics across scales? - JFSP Final Report
- Evaluating the influence of prior burn mosaics on subsequent wildfire behavior, severity, and fire management options - Final Report to the Joint Fire Science Program
- Evaluation of past-fire mosaics on subsequent wildfire behavior, severity and management strategies - JFSP Final Report
- Influence of past wildfires on wildfire effects in northern Rockies mixed-conifer forest - Final Report to the Joint Fire Science Program
- Changes in fire weather distributions: effects on predicted fire behavior
- Fire behavior in Northern Rocky Mountain Forests
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