Skip to main content

Search by keywords, then use filters to narrow down results by type, year, topic, or ecosystem.

Displaying 41 - 60 of 110

Fuel, aridity, and ignition switches were all on in 2017, making it one of the largest and costliest wildfire years in the United States (U.S.) since national reporting began. Anthropogenic climate change helped flip on some of these switches…
Author(s): Jennifer Balch, Tania L. Schoennagel, A. Park Williams, John T. Abatzoglou, Megan E. Cattau, Nathan Mietkiewicz, Lise A. St. Denis
Year Published:

Natural resource managers of federal lands in the USA are often tasked with various forms of social and economic impact analysis. Federal agencies in the USA also have a mandate to analyze the potential environmental justice consequences of their…
Author(s): Mark D. Adams, Susan Charnley
Year Published:

In his October 26, 2017 commentary in these pages (Wildfire Magazine 26.4; 4-5), Dr. Tom Zimmerman highlights a number of ongoing and future challenges faced by wildland fire management. To address these challenges he also identifies an important…
Author(s): John Hall, Paul F. Steblein, Colin C. Hardy
Year Published:

Landscape scale restoration is a common management intervention used around the world to combat ecological degradation. For wilderness managers in the United States, the decision to intervene is complicated by the Wilderness Act’s legal mandate to…
Author(s): Lucy Lieberman, Beth Hahn, Peter Landres
Year Published:

In this paper, we argue that the statement ‘Whoever owns the fuel owns the fire’ implies a duty on landowners to manage fuel on their land to reduce the likelihood of bushfires, however started, from spreading to neighbouring properties. However,…
Author(s): Michael Eburn, Geoffrey J. Cary
Year Published:

On June 1, 2015, the Forest Service, an agency of the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), celebrated the 100th anniversary of the Branch of Research. Established in 1915 to centralize and elevate the pursuit of research throughout the agency, the…
Author(s): Diane M. Smith
Year Published:

The concept of resilience has permeated the discourse of many land use and environmental agencies in an attempt to articulate how to develop and implement policies concerned with the social and ecological dimensions of natural disturbances. Several…
Author(s): Cassandra Moseley, R. Patrick Bixler, Christopher Bone, Kirsten Vinyeta
Year Published:

There is a widespread view among land managers and others that the protected status of many forestlands in the western United States corresponds with higher fire severity levels due to historical restrictions on logging that contribute to greater…
Author(s): Curtis M. Bradley, Chad T. Hanson, Dominick A. DellaSala
Year Published:

Record blazes swept across parts of the US in 2015, burning more than 10 million acres. The four biggest fire seasons since 1960 have all occurred in the last 10 years, leading to fears of a ‘new normal’ for wildfire. Fire fighters and forest…
Author(s): Tania L. Schoennagel, Penelope Morgan, Jennifer Balch, Philip E. Dennison, Brian J. Harvey, Richard L. Hutto, Meg A. Krawchuk, Max A. Moritz, Ray Rasker, Cathy L. Whitlock
Year Published:

Wildland fire smoke is inevitable. Size and intensity of wildland fires are increasing in the western USA. Smoke-free skies and public exposure to wildland fire smoke have effectively been postponed through suppression. The historic policy of…
Author(s): D.W. Schweizer, Richard Cisneros
Year Published:

In 1935, Elers Koch argued in a Journal of Forestry article that a minimum fire protection model should be implemented in the backcountry areas of national forests in Idaho, USA.  As a USDA Forest Service Supervisor and Assistant Regional Forester,…
Author(s): Elers Koch
Year Published:

This report examines recent wildfires in the United States, summarizing their frequency, trends, and costs. It documents the increase in large wildfires and shows their concentration in western states. Cost and budget issues linked to wildfires are…
Author(s): Vera Brusentsev, Wayne Vroman
Year Published:

Wildland fire management has reached a crossroads. Current perspectives are not capable of answering interdisciplinary adaptation and mitigation challenges posed by increases in wildfire risk to human populations and the need to reintegrate fire as…
Author(s): Alistair M. S. Smith, Crystal A. Kolden, Travis B. Paveglio, Mark A. Cochrane, David M. J. S. Bowman, Max A. Moritz, Andrew D. Kliskey, Lilian Alessa, Andrew T. Hudak, Chad M. Hoffman, James A. Lutz, Lloyd P. Queen, Scott J. Goetz, Philip E. Higuera, Luigi Boschetti, Michael D. Flannigan, Kara M. Yedinak, Adam C. Watts, Eva K. Strand, Jan W. van Wagtendonk, John Anderson, Brian J. Stocks, John T. Abatzoglou
Year Published:

Current U.S. forest fire policy emphasizes short-term outcomes versus long-term goals. This perspective drives managers to focus on the protection of high-valued resources, whether ecosystem-based or developed infrastructure, at the expense of…
Author(s): Scott L. Stephens, Brandon M. Collins, Eric Biber, Peter Z. Fule
Year Published:

Over the last two decades wildfire activity, damage, and management cost within the US have increased substantially. These increases have been associated with a number of factors including climate change and fuel accumulation due to a century of…
Author(s): David E. Calkin, Matthew P. Thompson, Mark A. Finney
Year Published:

With just over 3 months remaining, it looks like 2015 could be a record-breaking year for wildfires in the United States. So far this year, more than 8.5 million acres have burned and severe fires often happen in October. For the first time, the U.S…
Author(s): Christopher Topik
Year Published:

This is a position paper on the true costs of wildfire, collectively published by the Association for Fire Ecology, the International Association of Wildland  Fire, and The Nature Conservancy. The goal was to raise awareness of the often unreported…
Author(s): Association for Fire Ecology, International Association of Wildland Fire, The Nature Conservancy
Year Published:

Globally, wildfire size, severity, and frequency have been increasing, as have related fatalities and taxpayer-funded firefighting costs (1). In most accessible forests, wildfire response prioritizes suppression because fires are easier and cheaper…
Author(s): Malcolm P. North, Scott L. Stephens, Brandon M. Collins, James K. Agee, Gregory H. Aplet, Jerry F. Franklin, Peter Z. Fule
Year Published:

Large, intense wildland fires have become more frequent across the United States in recent decades. Risks to responders and citizens, property losses, response and recovery costs, and threats to communities and landscapes have increased…
Author(s): National Science and Technology Council
Year Published:

The Quadrennial Fire Review (QFR) is a strategic assessment process conducted every four years to evaluate current wildland fire management community strategies and capabilities against best estimates of the future environment. This report is the…
Author(s): Booz Allen Hamilton
Year Published: