Wildfires may facilitate climate tracking of forest species moving upslope or north in latitude. For subalpine tree species, for which higher elevation habitat is limited, accelerated replacement by lower elevation montane tree species following fire may hasten extinction risk.
As human populations expand and land-use change intensifies, terrestrial ecosystems experience concurrent disturbances (e.g., urbanization and fire) that may interact and compound their effects on biodiversity. In the urbanizing landscapes of the southern Appalachian region of the United States of America (US), fires in mesic forests have become more frequent in recent years.
A solution approach is proposed to optimize the selection of landscape cells for inclusion in firebreaks. It involves linking spatially explicit information on a landscape’s ecological values, historical ignition patterns and fire spread behavior.
Downslope wind-driven fires have resulted in many of the wildfire disasters in the western United States and represent a unique hazard to infrastructure and human life. We analyze the co-occurrence of wildfires and downslope winds across the western United States (US) during 1992–2020.
Background. Wildfre is a landscape disturbance important for stream ecosystems and the recruitment of large wood (LW; LW describes wood in streams) into streams, with post-fre management also playing a role.
Wildfire occurrence varies among regions and through time due to the long-term impacts of climate on fuel structure and short-term impacts on fuel flammability.
Background: Reliable wildfire prediction and efficient controlled burns require a comprehensive understanding of physical mechanisms controlling fire spread behaviour. Earlier studies explored the intermittent nature of free-burning fires, but the influence of flame intermittency on fire spread requires further attention.
Background: Accurately estimating burned area from satellites is key to improving biomass burning emission models, studying fire evolution and assessing environmental impacts. Previous studies have found that current methods for estimating burned area of fires from satellite active-fire data do not always provide an accurate estimate.
Aim Ecological disturbances are increasing as climate warms, and how multiple disturbances interact spatially to drive landscape change is poorly understood.
Background Maximizing the effectiveness of fuel treatments at landscape scales is a key research and management need given the inability to treat all areas at risk from wildfire. We synthesized information from case studies that documented the influence of fuel treatments on wildfire events.