Western U.S. wildfire area burned has increased dramatically over the last half‐century. How contemporary extent and severity of wildfires compare to the pre‐settlement patterns to which ecosystems are adapted is debated. We compared large wildfires in Pacific Northwest forests from 1984 to 2015 to modeled historic fire regimes.

The frequency, extent, and severity of wildfire strongly influence the structure and function of ecosystems. Mixed‐severity fire regimes are the most complex and least understood fire regimes, and variability of fire severity can occur at fine spatial and temporal scales, depending on previous disturbance history, topography, fuel continuity, vegetation type, and weather.

As wildfire activity increases in many regions of the world, it is imperative that we understand how key components of fire‐prone ecosystems respond to spatial variation in fire characteristics.

Prescribed fire is an active management tool used to address wildfire hazard and ecological concerns associated with fire exclusion and suppression over the past century.

Prescribed fire is an active management tool used to address wildfire hazard and ecological concerns associated with fire exclusion and suppression over the past century.

Wildfire ecosystems are thought to be self‐regulated through pattern–process interactions between ignition frequency and location, and patterns of burned and recovering vegetation. Yet, recent increases in the frequency of large wildfires call into question the application of self‐organization theory to landscape resilience.

Building resilience to natural disturbances is a key to managing forests for adaptation to climate change. To date, most climate adaptation guidance has focused on recommendations for frequent‐fire forests, leaving few published guidelines for forests that naturally experience infrequent, stand‐replacing wildfires.

A warming climate, fire exclusion, and land cover changes are altering the conditions that produced historical fire regimes and facilitating increased recent wildfire activity in the northwestern United States.

Over the past several decades, the management of historically frequent-fire forests in the western United States has received significant attention due to the linked ecological and social risks posed by the increased occurrence of large, contiguous patches of high-severity fire.

Forest landscapes across western North America (wNA) have experienced extensive changes over the last two centuries, while climatic warming has become a global reality over the last four decades.