We present a case study of the Las Conchas Fire (2011) to explore the role of previously burned areas (wildfires and prescribed fires) on suppression effectiveness and avoided exposure.
Throughout the Sierra Nevada, nearly a century of fire suppression has altered the tree species composition, forest structure, and fire regimes that were previously characteristic of montane forests.
There is a widespread view among land managers and others that the protected status of many forestlands in the western United States corresponds with higher fire severity levels due to historical restrictions on logging that contribute to greater amounts of biomass and fuel loading in less intensively managed areas, particularly after decades of fire suppression.
Over the past century, wildland fire management has been core to the mission of federal land management agencies.
Wildfires are an inherent part of the landscape in many parts of the world; however, they often impose substantial economic burdens on human populations where they occur, both in terms of impacts and of management costs.
Wildfire-potential information products are designed to support decisions for prefire staging of movable wildfire suppression resources across geographic locations.
Mega-fires and unprecedented expenditures on fire suppression over the past decade have resulted in a renewed focus on presuppression management. Dormant season grazing may be a treatment to reduce fuels in rangeland, but its effects have not been evaluated.
Humans cause more than 55% of wildfires on lands managed by the USDA Forest Service and US Department of the Interior, contributing to both suppression expenditures and damages.
The number of large, high-severity fires has increased in the western United States over the past 30 years due to climate change and increasing tree density from fire suppression. Fuel quantity, topography, and weather during a burn control fire severity, and the relative contributions of these controls in mixed-severity fires in mountainous terrain are poorly understood.
Current wildland firefighter safety zone guidelines are based on studies that assume flat terrain, radiant heating, finite flame width, constant flame temperature and high flame emissivity. Firefighter entrapments and injuries occur across a broad range of vegetation, terrain and atmospheric conditions generally when they are within two flame heights of the fire.