Fire has historically played a fundamental ecological role in many of America’s wildland areas.
Quaking aspen, the most widespread tree species in North America, reproduces primarily by resprouting from roots. In some stands, mortality from fire encourages sprouting and prevents conifers from eventually replacing aspen. In other areas, aspen can form stable communities that do not require fire to regenerate or persist.
During the 21st century, climate-driven changes in fire regimes will be a key agent of change in forests of the U.S. Pacific Northwest (PNW).
The 12-site National Fire and Fire Surrogate study (FFS) was a multivariate experiment that evaluated ecological consequences of alternative fuel-reduction treatments in seasonally dry forests of the US. Each site was a replicated experiment with a common design that compared an un-manipulated control, prescribed fire, mechanical and mechanical + fire treatments.
The interaction of fires, where one fire burns into another recently burned area, is receiving increased attention from scientists and land managers wishing to describe the role of fire scars in affecting landscape pattern and future fire spread.
The view that subalpine forest vegetation dynamics in western North America are "driven" by a particular disturbance type (i.e. fire) has shaped our understanding of their disturbance regimes.
Aim Wildfire is often considered more severe now than historically in dry forests of the western United States. Tree-ring reconstructions, which suggest that historical dry forests were park-like with large, old trees maintained by low-severity fires,are from small, scattered studies.
Understanding the causes and consequences of wildfires in forests of the western United States requires integrated information about fire, climate changes, and human activity on multiple temporal scales.
Forest managers use prescribed fire to reduce wildfire risk and to provide resource benefits, yet little information is available on whether prescribed fires can function as ecological surrogates for wildfire in fire-prone landscapes. Information on impacts and benefits of this management tool on stream and riparian ecosystems is particularly lacking.