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Over the past several decades, size and extent of wildfires have been increasing in the western United States (Westerling et al. 2006; Littell et al. 2009). As the number and size of recent wildfires increases across landscapes, fire managers are…
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Forests store a large amount of terrestrial carbon, but this storage capacity is vulnerable to wildfire. Combustion, and subsequent tree mortality and soil erosion, can lead to increased carbon release and decreased carbon uptake. Previous work has…
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A century of fire suppression across the Western United States has led to more crowded forests and increased competition for resources. Studies of forest thinning or stand conditions after mortality events have provided indirect evidence for how…
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The national symbol of forest fire prevention, Smokey Bear, and the slogan, 'Only you can prevent forest fires!' already existed when a group of firefighters on the Capitan Gap Fire found an orphaned bear cub clinging to a tree after a flareup. The…
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Unraveling the effects of climate and land use on historical fire regimes provides important insights into broader human–fire–climate dynamics, which are necessary for ecologically based forest management. We developed a spatial human land‐use model…
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Context: Lack of quantitative observations of extent, frequency, and severity of large historical fires constrains awareness of departure of contemporary conditions from those that demonstrated resistance and resilience to frequent fire and…
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Paleofire studies frequently discount the impact of human activities in past fire regimes. Globally, we know that a common pattern of anthropogenic burning regimes is to burn many small patches at high frequency, thereby generating landscape…
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Fire management around the world is now undergoing extensive review, with a move toward fire management plans that maintain biodiversity and other ecosystems services, while at the same time mitigating the negative impacts to people and property.…
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Sagebrush is one of the most imperiled ecosystems in western North America, having lost about half of its original 62 million hectare extent. Annual grass invasions are known to be increasing wildfire occurrence and burned area, but the lasting…
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Conifer forests of the western US are historically well adapted to wildfires, but current warming is creating novel disturbance regimes that may fundamentally change future forest dynamics. Stand‐replacing fires can catalyze forest reorganization by…
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The Earth has experienced large changes in global and regional climates over the past one million years. Understanding processes and feedbacks that control those past environmental changes is of great interest for better understanding the nature,…
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(1) Background: Frequent fire, climate variability, and human activities collectively influence savanna ecosystems. The relative role of these three factors likely varies on interannual, decadal, and centennial timescales. Here, we tested if Euro-…
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Analysis and 14C dating of charcoal fragments ≥2 mm buried in mineral soils make it possible to obtain a stand-scale portrait of Holocene fires that occurred in well-drained, fire-prone environments, as well as changes in forest stand composition…
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Aim: Ecological properties governed by threshold relationships can exhibit heightened sensitivity to climate, creating an inherent source of uncertainty when anticipating future change. We investigated the impact of threshold relationships on our…
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Conifer forests of the western US are historically well adapted to wildfires, but current warming is creating novel disturbance regimes that may fundamentally change future forest dynamics. Stand‐replacing fires can catalyze forest reorganization by…
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Like many of us at the Forest Service, I started my career in fire, and I have always relied on Smokey Bear. Fire prevention is part of our cultural DNA.
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Dry mixed-conifer forests are widespread in the interior Pacific Northwest, but their historical fire regimes are poorly characterized, in particular the relative mix of low- and high-severity fire. We reconstructed a multi-century history of fire…
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Before the advent of intensive forest management and fire suppression, western North American forests exhibited a naturally occurring resistance and resilience to wildfires and other disturbances. Resilience, which encompasses resistance, reflects…
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During the End-Permian mass extinction event (EPME) there is extensive evidence for depletion of oxygen in the marine realm. Atmospheric models based upon biogeochemical cycling predict a comparable decline leading up to this event and have been…
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This year, Smokey Bear turns 75. Think about that for a second-a public service announcement campaign just turned three-quarters of a century old! The Smokey program is the longest running public service announcement campaign in U.S. history and is…
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