Skip to main content

Exceptional variability in historical fire regimes across a western Cascades landscape, Oregon, USA

Year of Publication
2023
Publication Type
Journal Article
Detailed information about the historical range of variability in wildfire activity informs adaptation to future climate and disturbance regimes. Here, we describe one of the first annually resolved reconstructions of historical (1500–1900 ce) fire occurrence in coast Douglas-fir dominated forests of the west slope of the Cascade Range in western Oregon.

Deterioration of air quality associated with the 2020 US wildfires

Year of Publication
2023
Publication Type
Journal Article
The wildfires of August and September 2020 in the western part of the United States were characterized by an unparalleled duration and wide geographical coverage. A particular consequence of massive wildfires includes serious health effects due to short and long-term exposure to poor air quality.

Lightning-Ignited Wildfires in the Western United States: Ignition Precipitation and Associated Environmental Conditions

Year of Publication
2023
Publication Type
Journal Article
Cloud-to-ground lightning with minimal rainfall (“dry” lightning) is a major wildfire ignition source in the western United States (WUS). Although dry lightning is commonly defined as occurring with <2.5 mm of daily-accumulated precipitation, a rigorous quantification of precipitation amounts concurrent with lightning-ignited wildfires (LIWs) is lacking.

Climate influences on future fire severity: a synthesis of climate-fire interactions and impacts on fire regimes, high-severity fire, and forests in the western United States

Year of Publication
2023
Publication Type
Journal Article
Background Increases in fire activity and changes in fire regimes have been documented in recent decades across the western United States. Climate change is expected to continue to exacerbate impacts to forested ecosystems by increasing the frequency, size, and severity of wildfires across the western United States (US).

A roadmap for pyrodiversity science

Year of Publication
2023
Publication Type
Journal Article
Background Contemporary and projected shifts in global fire regimes highlight the importance of understanding how fire affects ecosystem function and biodiversity across taxa and geographies. Pyrodiversity, or heterogeneity in fire history, is often an important driver of biodiversity, though it has been largely overlooked until relatively recently.

The Future is Smoky

Webinar
With increasing wildfire activity due to changes in climate, smoke will likely become more prevalent and continue to have an effect on society. Earlier this year, smoke from Canada wildfires lowered air quality in the eastern U.S. to its worst levels in recorded history. As the climate heats up and creates drier conditions, smoky skies will grow increasingly common.

Mechanical thinning restores ecological functions in a seasonally dry ponderosa pine forest in the inland Pacific Northwest, USA

Year of Publication
2023
Publication Type
Journal Article
An increasingly important goal of federal land managers in seasonally dry forests of the western US is restoring forest resilience. In this study, we quantified the degree to which a thinning treatment in a dry forest of eastern Oregon restored aspects of forest resilience by focusing on key functional attributes of our study system.
Subscribe to