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The 2020 fire season in the western United States (the West) has been staggering: over 2.5 million ha have burned as of 31 September, including over 1.5 million ha in California (3.7% of the state), in part from five of the six largest fires in…
Author(s): Philip E. Higuera, John T. Abatzoglou
Year Published:

Global wildfire activity has experienced a dramatic surge since 2017. From Chile to Indonesia, unprecedented fire behavior has occurred in many areas worldwide including, but not limited to, Portugal, Siberia, Australia, the Amazon and Orinoco…
Author(s): Víctor Resco de Dios, Rachael H. Nolan
Year Published:

Climate change, with warming temperatures and shifting precipitation patterns, may increase natural-caused forest fire activity. Increasing natural-caused fires throughout western United States national forests could place people, property, and…
Author(s): Hadi Heidari, Mazdak Arabi, Travis Warziniack
Year Published:

Climate change is projected to exacerbate the intensity of heat-waves and drought, leading to greater incidences of large and high-intensity wildfires in forested ecosystems. While commonly-used remotely-sensed spectral assessments can provide…
Author(s): Alex W. Kirkpatrick
Year Published:

Increases in Vapor Pressure Deficit (VPD) have been hypothesized as the primary driver of future fire changes. The Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 5 (CMIP5) models agree that western U.S. surface temperatures and associated dryness of…
Author(s): Steven J. Brey, Elizabeth A. Barnes, Jeffrey R. Pierce, Abigail L. S. Swann, Emily V. Fischer
Year Published:

Humans have both intentional and unintentional impacts on their environment, yet identifying the enduring ecological legacies of past small-scale societies remains difficult, and as such, evidence is sparse. The present study found evidence of an…
Author(s): Bruce M. Pavlik, Lisbeth A. Louderback, Kenneth B. Vernon, Peter M. Yaworsky, Cynthia Wilson, Arnold Clifford, Brian F. Codding
Year Published:

Sexual regeneration is increasingly recognized as an important regeneration pathway for aspen in the western U.S., a region previously thought to be too dry for seedling establishment except for during unusually wet periods. Due to this historical…
Author(s): Mark R. Kreider, Larissa L. Yocom
Year Published:

Changing climatic conditions prompt concerns about vegetation response to disturbance under future compared to past conditions. In this long‐term study, we examined soil climate and vegetation differences at lower, mid, and upper elevations in two…
Author(s): Bruce A. Roundy, Jeanne C. Chambers
Year Published:

Climate change is expected to increase fire activity in many regions of the globe, but the relative role of human vs. lightning-caused ignitions on future fire regimes is unclear. We developed statistical models that account for the spatiotemporal…
Author(s): Ana M. G. Barros, Michelle A. Day, Haiganoush K. Preisler, John T. Abatzoglou, Meg A. Krawchuk, Rachel M. Houtman, Alan A. Ager
Year Published:

Implementation of wildfire- and climate-adaptation strategies in seasonally dry forests of western North America is impeded by numerous constraints and uncertainties. After more than a century of resource and land use change, some question the need…
Author(s): R. Keala Hagmann, Paul F. Hessburg, Susan J. Prichard, Nicholas A. Povak, Peter M. Brown, Peter Z. Fule, Robert E. Keane, Eric E. Knapp, Jamie M. Lydersen, Kerry L. Metlen, Matthew J. Reilly, Andrew Sanchez Meador, Scott L. Stephens, Jens T. Stevens, Alan H. Taylor, Larissa L. Yocom, Michael A. Battaglia, Derek J. Churchill, Lori D. Daniels, Donald A. Falk, Paul Henson, James D. Johnston, Meg A. Krawchuk, Carrie R. Levine, Garrett W. Meigs, Andrew G. Merschel, Malcolm P. North, Hugh Safford, Thomas W. Swetnam, Amy E. M. Waltz
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Aim: Fine‐scale topography and canopy cover can play an important role in mediating effects of regional‐scale climate change on the below‐canopy environment in mountain forests. The aim of this study was to determine how below‐canopy temperatures in…
Author(s): Amanda R. Carlson, Jason S. Sibold, Jose F. Negron
Year Published:

Wildfires constitute a serious threat for both the environment and human well-being. The US fire policy aims to tackle this problem, devoting a sizeable amount of resources and resorting extensively to fire suppression strategies. The theoretical…
Author(s): Massimiliano Agovino, Massimiliano Cercielo, Aniello Ferraro, Antonio Garofalo
Year Published:

No single factor produces wildfires; rather, they occur when fire thresholds (ignitions, fuels, and drought) are crossed. Anomalous weather events may lower these thresholds and thereby enhance the likelihood and spread of wildfires. Climate change…
Author(s): Juli G. Pausas, Jon E. Keeley
Year Published:

Wildfires are occurring more frequently and with greater severity domestically and around the globe. Across a series of studies, researchers at the University of Idaho set out to identify how and when climate variability affects wildfire frequency…
Author(s): Alex W. Kirkpatrick
Year Published:

Wildfires were a frequent source of disturbance in forests of the Western United States prior to Euro-American settlement. Following a series of catastrophic wildfires in the Northern Rockies in 1910, the U.S. Forest Service adopted a broad wildfire…
Author(s): Andrea Watts, Frederick C. Meinzer, Thomas A. Spies, Andrew G. Merschel, Steven L. Voelker
Year Published:

Recent dramatic and deadly increases in global wildfire activity have increased attention on the causes of wildfires, their consequences, and how risk from wildfire might be mitigated. Here we bring together data on the changing risk and societal…
Author(s): Marshall Burke, Anne Driscoll, Sam Heft-Neal, Jiani Xue, Jennifer Burney, Michael Wara
Year Published:

For over 20 years, forest fuel reduction has been the dominant management action in western US forests. These same actions have also been associated with the restoration of highly altered frequent-fire forests. Perhaps the vital element in the…
Author(s): Scott L. Stephens, Michael A. Battaglia, Derek J. Churchill, Brandon M. Collins, Michelle Coppoletta, Chad M. Hoffman, Jamie M. Lydersen, Malcolm P. North, Russell A. Parsons, Scott M. Ritter, Jens T. Stevens
Year Published:

Stephens et al. (2020) do an excellent job of encouraging us to sharpen our focus on the ecological consequences of forest and fire management activities, but at the same time they did not emphasize that those consequences differ substantially among…
Author(s): Richard L. Hutto
Year Published:

Increases in burned area and large fire occurrence are widely documented over the western United States over the past half century. Here, we focus on the elevational distribution of forest fires in mountainous ecoregions of the western United States…
Author(s): Mohammad Reza Alizadeha, John T. Abatzoglou, Charles H. Luce, Jan F. Adamowski, Arvin Farid, Mojtaba Sadegh
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: