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fire severity

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Contemporary fires are less frequent but more severe in dry conifer forests of the southwestern United States

Year of Publication
2024
Publication Type

Wildfires in the southwestern United States are increasingly frequent and severe, but whether these trends exceed historical norms remains contested. Here we combine dendroecological records, satellite-derived burn severity, and field measured tree mortality to compare historical (1700-1880) and contemporary (1985-2020) fire regimes at tree-ring fire-scar sites in Arizona and New Mexico.

Stream chemical response is mediated by hydrologic connectivity and fire severity in a Pacific Northwest forest

Year of Publication
2024
Publication Type

Large-scale wildfires are becoming increasingly common in the wet forests of the Pacific Northwest (USA), with predicted increases in fire prevalence under future climate scenarios. Wildfires can alter streamflow response to precipitation and mobilize water quality constituents, which pose a risk to aquatic ecosystems and downstream drinking water treatment.

Moderating effects of past wildfire on reburn severity depend on climate and initial severity in Western US forests

Year of Publication
2024
Publication Type

Rising global fire activity is increasing the prevalence of repeated short-interval burning (reburning) in forests worldwide. In forests that historically experienced frequent-fire regimes, high-severity fire exacerbates the severity of subsequent fires by increasing prevalence of shrubs and/or by creating drier understory conditions.

Tamm review: A meta-analysis of thinning, prescribed fire, and wildfire effects on subsequent wildfire severity in conifer dominated forests of the Western US

Year of Publication
2024
Publication Type

Increased understanding of how mechanical thinning, prescribed burning, and wildfire affect subsequent wildfire severity is urgently needed as people and forests face a growing wildfire crisis. In response, we reviewed scientific literature for the US West and completed a meta-analysis that answered three questions: (1) How much do treatments reduce wildfire severity within treated areas?

Estimating the influence of field inventory sampling intensity on forest landscape model performance for determining high-severity wildfire risk

Year of Publication
2024
Publication Type

Historically, fire has been essential in Southwestern US forests. However, a century of fire-exclusion and changing climate created forests which are more susceptible to uncharacteristically severe wildfires. Forest managers use a combination of thinning and prescribed burning to reduce forest density to help mitigate the risk of high-severity fires.

Incorporating pyrodiversity into wildlife habitat assessments for rapid post-fire management: A woodpecker case study

Year of Publication
2023
Publication Type

Spatial and temporal variation in fire characteristics—termed pyrodiversity—areincreasingly recognized as important factors that structure wildlife communitiesin fire-prone ecosystems, yet there have been few attempts to incorporatepyrodiversity or post-fire habitat dynamics into predictive models of animaldistributionsandabundancetosupportpost-firemanagement.Weusetheblack-backed woodpecker—a s