Pile burning of thinned residues is a critical tool to dispose of fuels and to reduce wildfire risk in overstocked, fire-prone forests globally. However, cost estimates of pile burning are limited.
The national Fire and Fire Surrogate (FFS) study was initiated more than two decades ago with the goal of evaluating the ecological impacts of mechanical treatments and prescribed fire in different ecosystems across the United States.
In the fire-prone and fire-adapted landscape of the Rogue River Basin of southwestern Oregon, communities mobilize to prepare, respond, and recover from wildfire while modifying the current social and ecological system.
Background: Prescribed fires play a critical role in reducing the intensity and severity of future wildfires by systematically and widely consuming accumulated vegetation fuel. While the current probability of prescribed fire escape in the United States stands very low, their consequential impact, particularly the large wildfires they cause, raises substantial concerns.
In many parts of the western United States, wildfires are becoming larger and more severe, threatening the persistence of forest ecosystems. Understanding the ways in which management activities such as prescribed fire and managed wildfire can mitigate fire severity is essential for developing effective forest conservation strategies.
In 2023, all regions of British Columbia (BC) experienced record-breaking fire weather and wildfires, with extreme behavior and social-ecological effects. In total, 2245 wildfires burned 2840 545 hectares. Contemporary wildfires are the culmination of a century of altered human–forest–wildfire relationships, exacerbated by climate change.
As climate warms, trees are expected to track their ideal climate, referred to as ‘range shifts’; however, lags in tree range shifts are currently common.
Managed burning of forests can provide benefits to society including mitigated wildfire risk, improved habitat, and more. However, adverse outcomes of escaped fire or smoke pose risks. I reviewed the evolution of the law regulating forest management burns, explored the current legal architecture, and analyzed the economic incentives for involved actors, in order to identify policy options.
We present a mixed integer programming model for prioritizing fuel treatments within a landscape fuel break network to maximize protection against wildfires, measured by the total fire size reduction or the sum of Wildland Urban Interface areas avoided from burning. This model uses a large dataset of simulated wildfires in a large landscape to inform fuel break treatment decisions.