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Displaying 1 - 20 of 118

An atmospheric river (AR) is a strong filamentary water vapor transport that plays a critical role in regional hydroclimate systems. While climate conditions can affect wildfire activities, the process by which ARs are associated with wildfire…
Author(s): Ju-Mee Ryoo, Taejin Park
Year Published:

(1) Background: Federal land managers in the US are charged with risk-based decision-making which requires them to know the risk and to direct resources accordingly. Without understanding the specific factors that produce risk, it is difficult to…
Author(s): Erin Noonan-Wright, Carl A. Seielstad
Year Published:

We review science-based adaptation strategies for western North American (wNA) forests that include restoring active fire regimes and fostering resilient structure and composition of forested landscapes. As part of the review, we address common…
Author(s): Susan J. Prichard, Paul F. Hessburg, R. Keala Hagmann, Nicholas A. Povak, Solomon Z. Dobrowski, Matthew D. Hurteau, Van R. Kane, Robert E. Keane, Leda N. Kobziar, Crystal A. Kolden, Malcolm P. North, Sean A. Parks, Hugh Safford, Jens T. Stevens, Larissa L. Yocom, Derek J. Churchill, Robert W. Gray, David W. Huffman, Frank K. Lake, Pratima Khatri-Chhetri
Year Published:

Determining whether forest landscapes can maintain their resilience to fire – that is, their ability to rebound and sustain – given rapid climate change and increasing fire activity is a pressing challenge throughout the American West. Many western…
Author(s): Monica G. Turner
Year Published:

Drought and warming increasingly are causing widespread tree die-offs and extreme wildfires. Forest managers are struggling to improve anticipatory forest management practices given more frequent, extensive, and severe wildfire and tree die-off…
Author(s): Jason P. Field, David D. Breshears, John Bradford, Darin J. Law, Xiao Feng, Craig D. Allen
Year Published:

Increases in burned area across the western US since the mid‐1980’s have been widely documented and linked partially to climate factors, yet evaluations of trends in fire severity are lacking. Here, we evaluate fire severity trends and their…
Author(s): Sean A. Parks, John T. Abatzoglou
Year Published:

Background: Few studies have examined post-fire vegetation recovery in temperate forest ecosystems with Landsat time series analysis. We analyzed time series of Normalized Burn Ratio (NBR) derived from LandTrendr spectral-temporal segmentation…
Author(s): Benjamin C. Bright, Andrew T. Hudak, Robert E. Kennedy, Justin D. Braaten, Azad Henareh Khalyani
Year Published:

For millennia, wildfires have markedly influenced forests and non-forested landscapes of the western United States (US), and they are increasingly seen as having substantial impacts on society and nature. There is growing concern over what kinds and…
Author(s): Max A. Moritz, Christopher Topik, Craig D. Allen, Paul F. Hessburg, Penelope Morgan, Dennis C. Odion, Thomas T. Veblen, Ian M. McCullough
Year Published:

Fire is a fundamental Earth system process and the primary ecosystem disturbance on the global scale. It affects carbon and water cycles through changing terrestrial ecosystems, and at the same time, is regulated by weather and climate, vegetation…
Author(s): Fang Li, David M. Lawrence, Ben Bond-Lamberty
Year Published:

Disturbances alter ecosystem, community, or population structures and change elements of the biological and/or physical environment. Climate changes can alter the timing, magnitude, frequency, and duration of disturbance events, as well as the…
Author(s): Rachel A. Loehman, Barbara J. Bentz, Gregg DeNitto, Robert E. Keane, Mary Manning, Jacob P. Duncan, Joel M. Egan, Marcus B. Jackson, Sandra Kegley, I. Blakley Lockman, Dean E. Pearson, James A. Powell, Steve Shelly, Brytten E. Steed, Paul J. Zambino
Year Published:

In many forested ecosystems, it is increasingly recognized that the probability of burning is substantially reduced within the footprint of previously burned areas. This self‐limiting effect of wildland fire is considered a fundamental emergent…
Author(s): Sean A. Parks, Marc-Andre Parisien, Carol Miller, Lisa M. Holsinger, Scott L. Baggett
Year Published:

The effects of climate oscillations on spatial and temporal variations in wildland fire potential in the continental U.S. are examined from 1979 to 2015 using cyclostationary empirical orthogonal functions (CSEOFs). The CSEOF analysis isolates…
Author(s): Shelby A. Mason, Peter E. Hamlington, Benjamin D. Hamlington, William Matt Jolly, Chad M. Hoffman
Year Published:

Climate change is expected to result in substantial ecological impacts across the globe. These impacts are uncertain but there is strong consensus that they will almost certainly affect fire regimes and vegetation. In this study, we evaluated how…
Author(s): Sean A. Parks, Lisa M. Holsinger, Carol Miller, Marc-Andre Parisien
Year Published:

The Constitution of the State of Montana, ratified in 1972, affirms Montanans’ inalienable “right to a clean and healthful environment” (State of Montana 1972). Since the signing of the constitution, that declaration has galvanized Montanans to…
Author(s): Cathy L. Whitlock, Wyatt Cross, Bruce D. Maxwell, Nick Silverman, Alisa A. Wade
Year Published:

We examined relationships between monthly Arctic sea-ice extent (ASIE) and annual wildfire activity for seven regions in the western United States during 1980-2015 to determine if spatio-temporal linkages exist between ASIE, upper-level flow, and…
Author(s): Paul A. Knapp, Peter T. Soulé
Year Published:

Fire is returning to many conifer-dominated forests where species composition and structure have been altered by fire exclusion. Ecological effects of these fires are influenced strongly by the degree of forest change during the fire-free period.…
Author(s): Christopher D. O'Connor, Donald A. Falk, Ann M. Lynch, Thomas W. Swetnam, Craig P. Wilcox
Year Published:

Climate change is disrupting historical patterns of adaptation in temperate and boreal tree species, causing local populations to become maladapted. Tree improvement programs typically utilise local base populations and manage adaptation using…
Author(s): Ian R. MacLachlan, Tongli Wang, Andreas Hamann, Pia Smets, Sally N. Aitken
Year Published:

Wildland firefighters must assess potential fire behaviour in order to develop appropriate strategies and tactics that will safely meet objectives. Fire danger indices integrate surface weather conditions to quantify potential variations in fire…
Author(s): William Matt Jolly, Patrick H. Freeborn
Year Published:

Wildland fire is a disturbance that can profoundly impact the environment and human health and welfare. While climate is generally a critical driving factor shaping the occurrence and impacts of fire, fire can also play a role in shaping climate.…
Author(s): Anping Chen, Richard A. Birdsey
Year Published:

We have constructed a fire weather climatology over North America from 1979 to 2015 using the North American Regional Reanalysis dataset and the Canadian Fire Weather Index (FWI) System. We tested for the presence of trends in potential fire season…
Author(s): Piyush Jain, Xianli Wang, Michael D. Flannigan
Year Published: