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Journal Article

Displaying 1 - 10 of 1280

Documenting non-governmental organization (NGO) participation and collaboration during community recovery from wildfire

Year of Publication
2025
Publication Type

Existing research indicates that NGOs can serve important roles during recovery from wildfires and other hazard events. Yet less work explores the specific, place-based conditions that influence NGO participation in the recovery process, or the specific tactics they might use when facilitating the transfer of knowledge and resources that meet emergent recovery needs.

Wildfire and forest treatments mitigate–but cannot forestall–climate-driven changes in streamflow regimes in a western US mountain landscape

Year of Publication
2025
Publication Type

Warming temperatures and increasingly variable precipitation patterns are reducing winter snowpack and critical late-season streamflows. Here, we used two models (LANDIS-II and DHSVM) in linked simulations to evaluate the effects of wildfire and forest management scenarios on future snowpack and streamflow dynamics.

Bucking the suppression status quo: incentives to shift the wildfire management paradigm around natural ignitions

Year of Publication
2025
Publication Type

Background: Wildfire policy has evolved rapidly over the past three decades, necessitating repeated shifts in management and communication strategies for US land management agencies. One growing focus considers the use of “other than full suppression” (OTFS) strategies, where managers use natural ignitions to achieve management objectives when conditions allow.

Wildfires drive multi-year water quality degradation over the western United States

Year of Publication
2025
Publication Type

Wildfires can dramatically alter water quality, resulting in severe implications for human and freshwater systems. However, regional-scale assessments of these impacts are often limited by data scarcity. Here, we unify observations from 1984–2021 in 245 burned watersheds across the western United States, comparing post-fire signals to baseline levels from 293 unburned basins.

A Quantitative Analysis of Firefighter Availability and Prescribed Burning in the Okanogan–Wenatchee National Forest

Year of Publication
2025
Publication Type

Wildfire activity in the western United States has been on the rise since the mid-1980s, with longer, higher-risk fire seasons projected for the future. Prescribed burning mitigates the risk of extreme wildfire events, but such treatments are currently underutilized. Fire managers have cited lack of firefighter availability as a key barrier to prescribed burning.

Mapping Delayed Canopy Loss and Durable Fire Refugia for the 2020 Wildfires in Washington State Using Multiple Sensors

Year of Publication
2025
Publication Type

Fire refugia are unburned and low severity patches within wildfires that contribute heterogeneity that is important to retaining biodiversity and regenerating forest following fire. With increasingly intense and frequent wildfires in the Pacific Northwest, fire refugia are important for re-establishing populations sensitive to fire and maintaining resilience to future disturbances.

Trees in Fire-Maintained Forests Have Similar Growth Responses to Drought, but Greater Stomatal Conductance Than Trees in Fire-Excluded Forests

Year of Publication
2025
Publication Type

In the western US, increased tree density in dry conifer forests from fire exclusion has caused tree growth declines, which is being compounded by hotter multi-year droughts. The reintroduction of frequent, low-severity wildfire reduces forest density by removing fire-intolerant trees, which can reduce competition for water and improve tree growth response to drought.