The Ecological Importance of High-Severity Fires, presents information on the current paradigm shift in the way people think about wildfire and ecosystems.
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 to contain when small (2). In the United States, for example, 98% of wildfires are suppressed before reaching 120 ha in size (3).
Studies project that a warming climate will likely increase wildfire activity in many areas (Westerling and others 2002; Flannigan and others 2005, 2009; Littell and others 2009).
Modeling the behavior of crown fires is challenging due to the complex set of coupled processes that drive the characteristics of a spreading wildfire and the large range of spatial and temporal scales over which these processes occur.
Wildland fire management faces unprecedented challenges in the 21st century: the increasingly apparent effects of climate change, more people and structures in the wildland-urban interface, growing costs associated with wildfire management, and the rise of high-impact fires, to name a few.
Fire is a natural disturbance that is nearly ubiquitous in terrestrial ecosystems. The capacity to burn exists virtually wherever vegetation grows. In some forested landscapes, fire is a principal driver of rapid ecosystem change, resetting succession ( McKenzie et al. 1996a ) and changing wildlife habitat (Cushman et al. 2011 ), hydrology ( Feikema et al.
As the size and extent of wildfires has increased in recent decades, so has the cost and extent of post-fire management, including seeding and salvage logging. However, we know little about how burn severity, salvage logging, and post-fire seeding interact to influence vegetation recovery long-term.
Increasing size and severity of wildfires have led to increased interest in managing forests for resiliency to future disturbances. Comparing and contrasting treated versus untreated stands through multiple growing seasons postfire provide an opportunity to understand processes driving responses and can guide management decisions regarding resiliency.
Fire is an important disturbance in riparian systems—consuming vegetation; increasing light;creating snags and debris flows; altering habitat structure; and affecting stream conditions, erosion, andhydrology. For many years, land managers have worked to keep fire out of riparian systems through theuse of buffers.
The Summit Post-fire Logging Study was conducted on the Malheur National Forest in Oregon from 1997 through 2011. The study was intended to examine the effects of logging after a severe wildfire burned through a set of 12 stands just north of the Middle Fork of the John Day River, Malheur County.