Landscape Partnership
https://landscapepartnership.org
-
How the South Fights Fire with Fire, and What the West Can Learn
https://landscapepartnership.org/news/how-the-south-fights-fire-with-fire
Most years Georgia intentionally burns around a million acres of forest. That’s about 30 times the size of California’s prescribed burns. Florida performs prescribed burns over twice that much land. That’s according to data from the national interagency fire center and compiled by the non-profit Climate Central.
No publisher
© 2019 Georgia Public Broadcasting
Fire
Forest restoration
Forest fire
News
2019/06/04 13:20:00 GMT-4
News Item
-
Pedoecological Modeling to Guide Forest Restoration using Ecological Site Descriptions
https://landscapepartnership.org/maps-data/climate-context/cc-resources/ClimateSciPDFs/pedoecological-modeling-to-guide-forest-restoration-using-ecological-site-descriptions
the u.s. department of agriculture (usda)-natural resources conservation service (nrcs) uses an ecological site description (esd) framework to help incorporate interactions between local soil, climate, flora, fauna, and humans into schema for land management decision-making. we demonstrate esd and digital soil mapping tools to (i) estimate potential o horizon carbon (c) stock accumulation from restoring alternative ecological states in high-elevation forests of the central appalachian Mountains in west Virginia (wV), usa, and (ii) map areas in alternative ecological states that can be targeted for restoration. this region was extensively disturbed by clear-cut harvests and related fires during the 1880s through 1930s. we combined spodic soil property maps, recently linked to historic red spruce–eastern hemlock (Picea rubens–Tsuga canadensis) forest communities, with current forest inventories to provide guidance for restoration to a historic reference state. this allowed mapping of alternative hardwood states within areas of the spodic shale uplands conifer forest (scF) ecological site, which is mapped along the regional conifer-hardwood transition of the central appalachian Mountains. Plots examined in these areas suggest that many of the spruce-hemlock dominated stands in wV converted to a hardwood state by historic disturbance have lost at least 10 cm of o horizon thickness, and possibly much more. Based on this 10 cm estimate, we calculate that at least 3.74 to 6.62 tg of c were lost from areas above 880 m elevation in wV due to historic disturbance of o horizons, and that much of these stocks and related ecosystem functions could potentially be restored within 100 yr under focused management, but more practical scenarios would likely require closer to 200 yr.
No publisher
Wildfire
Disturbance
Logging
Carbon stocks
Forest fire
Species Reintroduction
Climate Change
Land Use
Carbon flux
Forests
Appalachia
Red spruce and chestnut
Long-term
Restoration
Clearcut logging
High elevation
Wildland Fire
Appalachian forest
Harvesting
Carbon sink
Timber
2016/01/16 20:36:54 GMT-4
File
-
Palaeodata-informed modelling of large carbon losses from recent burning of boreal forests
https://landscapepartnership.org/maps-data/climate-context/cc-resources/ClimateSciPDFs/palaeodata-informed-modelling-of-large-carbon-losses-from-recent-burning-of-boreal-forests
Wildfires play a key role in the boreal forest carbon cycle(1,2), and models suggest that accelerated burning will increase boreal C emissions in the coming century (3). However, these predictions may be compromised because brief observational records provide limited constraints to model initial conditions (4). We confronted this limitation by using palaeoenvironmental data to drive simulations of long-term C dynamics in the Alaskan bo- real forest. Results show that fire was the dominant control on C cycling over the past millennium, with changes in fire frequency accounting for 84% of C stock variability. A recent rise in fire frequency inferred from the palaeorecord5 led to simulated C losses of 1.4 kg C m?2(12% of ecosystem C stocks) from 1950 to 2006. In stark contrast, a small net C sink of 0.3 kg C m?2 occurred if the past fire regime was assumed to be similar to the modern regime, as is common in models of C dynamics. Although boreal fire regimes are heterogeneous, recent trends6 and future projections (7) point to increasing fire activity in response to climate warming throughout the biome. Thus, predictions (8) that terrestrial C sinks of northern high latitudes will mitigate rising atmospheric CO2 may be over-optimistic.
No publisher
Carbon stocks
Forest fire
Forests
Biosphere–atmosphere feedbacks
Temperature
Climate Impacts
High latitude
Models
Sustainability
Heat
Scientific Publications
Morbidity
Ecosystem Services
Carbon sink
Climate Change
sink to source
Positive feedback
carbon source
tree mortality
CO2
Habitat
Land Use
Boreal
2016/01/16 20:36:54 GMT-4
File
-
Reform forest fire management: Agency incentives undermine policy effectiveness
https://landscapepartnership.org/maps-data/climate-context/cc-resources/ClimateSciPDFs/reform-forest-fire-management-agency-incentives-undermine-policy-effectiveness
Globally, wildfire size, severity, and frequency have been increasing, as have related fatalities and taxpayer- funded firefighting costs (1). In most accessible forests, wildfire response prioritizes suppression because fires are easier and cheaper to contain when small (2). In the United States, for example, 98% of wildfires are suppressed before reaching 120 ha in size (3). But the 2% of wildfires that escape containment often burn under extreme weather conditions in fuel-loaded forests and account for 97% of fire-fighting costs and total area burned (3). Changing climate and decades of fuel accumulation make efforts to suppress every fire dangerous, expensive, and ill advised (4).
No publisher
Wildfire
Climate Impacts
Temperature
Forest fire
urban rural edge
Climate Change
Reform
Extreme scenarios
Policy
Heat
Management
Wildland Fire
Economic risk(s)
2016/01/16 20:35:58 GMT-4
File
-
Medieval warming initiated exceptionally large wildfire outbreaks in the Rocky Mountains
https://landscapepartnership.org/maps-data/climate-context/cc-resources/ClimateSciPDFs/medieval-warming-initiated-exceptionally-large-wildfire-outbreaks-in-the-rocky-mountains
Many of the largest wildfires in US history burned in recent decades, and climate change explains much of the increase in area burned. The frequency of extreme wildfire weather will increase with continued warming, but many uncertainties still exist about future fire regimes, including how the risk of large fires will persist as vegetation changes. Past fire-climate relationships provide an opportunity to constrain the related uncertainties, and reveal widespread burn- ing across large regions of western North America during past warm intervals. Whether such episodes also burned large portions of individual landscapes has been difficult to determine, however, because uncertainties with the ages of past fires and limited spatial resolution often prohibit specific estimates of past area burned. Accounting for these challenges in a subalpine landscape in Colorado, we estimated century-scale fire synchroneity across 12 lake- sediment charcoal records spanning the past 2,000 y. The percent- age of sites burned only deviated from the historic range of vari- ability during the Medieval Climate Anomaly (MCA) between 1,200 and 850 y B.P., when temperatures were similar to recent decades. Between 1,130 and 1,030 y B.P., 83% (median estimate) of our sites burned when temperatures increased ∼0.5 °C relative to the preceding centuries. Lake-based fire rotation during the MCA decreased to an estimated 120 y, representing a 260% higher rate of burning than during the period of dendroecological sampling (360 to −60 y B.P.). Increased burning, however, did not persist throughout the MCA. Burning declined abruptly before temperatures cooled, indicating possible fuel limitations to continued burning.
No publisher
Wildfire
Charcoal
Lake sediment
Temperature
Forest fire
Climate Change
Watersheds
Forests
Global warming
Sustainability
global change
Extremes
woodlands
Fuel limits
Wildland Fire
Vegetation
Medieval Climate Anomaly
2016/01/16 20:34:52 GMT-4
File
-
Don't Blame the Beetles
https://landscapepartnership.org/maps-data/climate-context/cc-resources/ClimateSciPDFs/dont-blame-the-beatles
Bark beetles have devastated western forests, but that may not mean more severe fires.
No publisher
Forest mortality
Disturbance
Forest dieoff
Forest fire
Climate Change
Conifers
Forests
Forest Management
Forest dieback
Beetle
Drought effects
Dieback
Dieoff
2015/04/07 22:25:00 GMT-4
File
-
A new, global, multi-annual (2000–2007) burnt area product at 1 km resolution Vol. 35
https://landscapepartnership.org/maps-data/climate-context/cc-resources/ClimateSciPDFs/World%20Fire%20Map%20GRL08.pdf
This paper reports on the development and validation
of a new, global, burnt area product. Burnt areas are
reported at a resolution of 1 km for seven fire years (2000 to
2007). A modified version of a Global Burnt Area (GBA)
2000 algorithm is used to compute global burnt area. The
total area burnt each year (2000– 2007) is estimated to be
between 3.5 million km2 and 4.5 million km2
. The total
amount of vegetation burnt by cover type according to the
Global Land Cover (GLC) 2000 product is reported.
Validation was undertaken using 72 Landsat TM scenes
was undertaken. Correlation statistics between estimated
burnt areas are reported for major vegetation types. The
accuracy of this new global data set depends on vegetation
type.
No publisher
Wildfire
Carbon sink
Carbon stocks
Forest fire
Climate Change
Land Use
Greenhouse gases
Forests
Carbon cycle
Heat
Climate Impacts
Land atmosphere coupling
Emissions
Wildland Fire
World fire map
Global burnt area
Temperature
2015/04/07 22:25:00 GMT-4
File
-
Coupling of Vegetation Growing Season Anomalies and Fire Activity with Hemispheric and Regional-Scale Climate Patterns in Central and East Siberia
https://landscapepartnership.org/maps-data/climate-context/cc-resources/ClimateSciPDFs/Siberian%20fire%20phenology.pdf
An 18-yr time series of the fraction of absorbed photosynthetically active radiation (fAPAR) taken in by
the green parts of vegetation data from the NOAA Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer
(AVHRR) instrument series was analyzed for interannual variations in the start, peak, end, and length of
the season of vegetation photosynthetic activity in central and east Siberia. Variations in these indicators of
seasonality can give important information on interactions between the biosphere and atmosphere. A
second-order local moving window regression model called the “camelback method” was developed to
determine the dates of phenological events at subcontinental scale. The algorithm was validated by comparing
the estimated dates to phenological field observations. Using spatial correlations with temperature
and precipitation data and climatic oscillation indices, two geographically distinct mechanisms in the system
of climatic controls of the biosphere in Siberia are postulated: central Siberia is controlled by an “Arctic
Oscillation–temperature mechanism,” while east Siberia is controlled by an “El Niño–precipitation mechanism.”
While the analysis of data from 1982 to 1991 indicates a slight increase in the length of the growing
season for some land-cover types due to an earlier beginning of the growing season, the overall trend from
1982 to 1999 is toward a slightly shorter season for some land-cover types caused by an earlier end of season.
The Arctic Oscillation tended toward a more positive phase in the 1980s leading to enhanced high pressure
system prevalence but toward a less positive phase in the 1990s. The results suggest that the two mechanisms
also control the fire regimes in central and east Siberia. Several extreme fire years in central Siberia were
associated with a highly positive Arctic Oscillation phase, while several years with high fire damage in east
Siberia occurred in El Niño years. An analysis of remote sensing data of forest fire partially supports this
hypothesis
VOLUME 20
No publisher
Fire frequency
Coupling
Forest fire
High latitude
Fire
Climate Change
Arctic oscillation
El Nino
Growing season
Terrestrial ecosystems
Vegetation
Greenup
2015/04/07 22:25:00 GMT-4
File
-
Carbon loss from an unprecedented Arctic tundra wildfire
https://landscapepartnership.org/maps-data/climate-context/cc-resources/ClimateSciPDFs/natureArcticFire.pdf
Arctic tundra soils store large amounts of carbon (C) in organic soil layers hundreds to thousands of years old that insulate, and in some cases maintain, permafrost soils1,2. Fire has been largely absent from most of this biome since the early Holocene epoch3, but its frequency and extent are increasing, probably in response to climate warming4. The effect of fires on the C balance of tundra landscapes, however, remains largely unknown. The Anaktuvuk River fire in 2007 burned 1,039 square kilometres of Alaska’s Arctic slope, making it the largest fire on record for the tundra biome and doubling the cumulative area burned since 1950 (ref. 5). Here we report that tundra ecosystems lost 2,016 6 435 g C m22 in the fire, an amount two orders of magnitude larger than annual net C exchange in undisturbed tundra6. Sixty per cent of this C loss was from soil organic matter, and radiocarbon dating of residual soil layers revealed that the maximum age of soil C lost was 50 years. Scaled to the entire burned area, the fire released approximately 2.1 teragrams of C to the atmosphere, an amount similar in magnitude to the annual net C sink for the entire Arctic tundra biome averaged over the last quarter of the twentieth century7. The mag- nitude of ecosystem C lost by fire, relative to both ecosystem and biome-scale fluxes, demonstrates that a climate-driven increase in tundra fire disturbance may represent a positive feedback, potentially offsetting Arctic greening 8 and influencing the net C balance of the tundra biome.
No publisher
Fire frequency
Climate Impacts
Temperature
Forest fire
Terrestrial ecosystems
Climate Change
Landscape scale
Arctic fire
Tundra
Permafrost
Carbon stocks
Forest Management
Heat
Carbon sink
Land Use
Boreal fire
Economic risk(s)
Terrestrial sequestration
Investment risk
2015/04/07 22:25:00 GMT-4
File
-
CLIMATE’S SMOKY SPECTRE
https://landscapepartnership.org/maps-data/climate-context/cc-resources/ClimateSciPDFs/Nature09Great%20discussion%20of%20black%20soot.pdf
With their focus on greenhouse gases, atmospheric scientists have largely overlooked lowly soot particles. But black carbon is now a hot topic among researchers and politicians.
No publisher
Climate Change
Fossil fuel combustion
Black carbon
Forest fire
Soot
2015/04/07 22:25:00 GMT-4
File
-
Contingent Pacific-Atlantic Ocean influence on multicentury wildfire synchrony over western North America
https://landscapepartnership.org/maps-data/climate-context/cc-resources/ClimateSciPDFs/Kitzberger%20PNAS%20ocean%20fire
Widespread synchronous wildfires driven by climatic variation, such as those that swept western North America during 1996, 2000, and 2002, can result in major environmental and societal impacts. Understanding relationships between continental-scale patterns of drought and modes of sea surface temperatures (SSTs) such as El Nin ̃o-Southern Oscillation (ENSO), Pacific Decadal Oscillation (PDO), and Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO) may explain how interannual to multidecadal variability in SSTs drives fire at continental scales. We used local wildfire chronologies recon- structed from fire scars on tree rings across western North America and independent reconstructions of SST developed from tree-ring widths at other sites to examine the relationships of multicentury patterns of climate and fire synchrony. From 33,039 annually resolved fire-scar dates at 238 sites (the largest paleofire record yet assembled), we examined forest fires at regional and subconti- nental scales. Since 1550 CE, drought and forest fires covaried across the West, but in a manner contingent on SST modes. During certain phases of ENSO and PDO, fire was synchronous within broad subregions and sometimes asynchronous among those re- gions. In contrast, fires were most commonly synchronous across the West during warm phases of the AMO. ENSO and PDO were the main drivers of high-frequency variation in fire (interannual to decadal), whereas the AMO conditionally changed the strength and spatial influence of ENSO and PDO on wildfire occurrence at multidecadal scales. A current warming trend in AMO suggests that we may expect an increase in widespread, synchronous fires across the western U.S. in coming decades.
Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation El Nino Southern Oscillation fire history network ocean warming Pacific Decadal Oscillation
No publisher
Fire frequency
Sea temperature
Forest fire
Fire
Climate Change
El Nino
El Nino Southern Oscillation
Atmosphere-ocean coupled system
Wildland Fire
Wildfire
Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation
2015/04/07 22:20:00 GMT-4
File
-
Characterizing Fire-on-Fire interactions in three Large Wilderness areas
https://landscapepartnership.org/maps-data/climate-context/cc-resources/ClimateSciPDFs/FireInWildernes.pdf
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. Here, we quantify fire-on- fire interactions in terms of frequency, size, and time-since-previous fire (TSPF) in three large wilderness areas in Montana and Idaho, USA, from 1984 to present, using spatially consistent large fire perimeter data from the Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity (MTBS) dataset. The analysis is supplemented with less consistent fire perimeter data from a re- gional fire atlas in order to examine the potential role played by smaller fires in fire-on-fire interactions. We compare current rates of burning to existing estimates using the natural fire rotation (NFR) to determine whether recent fire activity falls within established historical ranges. We also compare actual fires to randomly located fires to establish whether the frequency and size of re-burns differ by chance. Finally, we systematically classify shared fire edges as fire-stopping or breached to quantify the effect of previous fires on subsequent fire spread. In total, more than half of the Frank Church, one-quarter of the Bob Marshall, and fifteen percent of the Selway-Bitterroot wilderness areas have burned since 1984. Area burned within each of the study areas yielded NFRs that are consistent with results derived from fire atlas and tree-ring research studies. The data show that re- burning occurs less frequently than chance in the Frank Church Wilderness Area, perhaps less frequently in the Bob Marshall Wilderness Area, and the same as chance in the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness Area. In each of the study areas, the total amount of edge at which a fire met another fire was less than three percent of the total available perimeter. However, ~80% of the total edge encountered was breached, resulting in fire spreading onto previously burned landscapes and re-burning at least 40 ha. Year-to-year variability in re-burn occurrence was high, and the size of re-burns was typically small, implying a general resistance to re-burning, but the preponderance of small patches resulting from fire interactions has perhaps significant ecological implications. There was a systematic decrease in the frequency of small to medium sized re-burns (40 ha to 405 ha) as time be- tween fires increased in all three wilderness areas. The frequency of large re-burns in- creased with time in the Frank Church wilderness area, but this trend was not apparent in the other two wilderness areas. Overall, fire-on-fire interactions show a high degree of complexity, making direct comparisons between the three wilderness areas difficult, but the evidence suggests that large wildfires generally inhibit the spread of subsequent fires, while small fires appear to have little impact on the spread of other fires.
No publisher
Burn intensity
Forest fire
Climate Change
Fire-on-fire
Evergreen forests
Biomass burning
Burn re-reburn
2015/04/07 22:20:00 GMT-4
File
-
Climate change and disruptions to global fire activity
https://landscapepartnership.org/maps-data/climate-context/cc-resources/ClimateSciPDFs/FireGlobal%20outlook.pdf
Future disruptions to fire activity will threaten ecosystems and human well-being throughout the world, yet there are few fire projections at global scales and almost none from a broad range of global climate models (GCMs). Here we integrate global fire datasets and environmental covariates to build spatial statistical models of fire probability at a 0.58 resolution and examine environmental controls on fire activity. Fire models are driven by climate norms from 16 GCMs (A2 emissions scenario) to assess the magnitude and direction of change over two time periods, 2010–2039 and 2070–2099. From the ensemble results, we identify areas of consensus for increases or decreases in fire activity, as well as areas where GCMs disagree. Although certain biomes are sensitive to constraints on biomass productivity and others to atmospheric conditions promoting combustion, substantial and rapid shifts are projected for future fire activity across vast portions of the globe. In the near term, the most consistent increases in fire activity occur in biomes with already somewhat warm climates; decreases are less pronounced and concentrated primarily in a few tropical and subtropical biomes. However, models do not agree on the direction of near- term changes across more than 50% of terrestrial lands, highlighting major uncertainties in the next few decades. By the end of the century, the magnitude and the agreement in direction of change are projected to increase substantially. Most far-term model agreement on increasing fire probabilities (;62%) occurs at mid- to high-latitudes, while agreement on decreasing probabilities (;20%) is mainly in the tropics. Although our global models demonstrate that long-term environmental norms are very successful at capturing chronic fire probability patterns, future work is necessary to assess how much more explanatory power would be added through interannual variation in climate variables. This study provides a first examination of global disruptions to fire activity using an empirically based statistical framework and a multi-model ensemble of GCM projections, an important step toward assessing fire-related vulnerabilities to humans and the ecosystems upon which they depend.
Key words: climatic constraints; ensemble model uncertainty; flammability; global climate models (GCM); GCM agreement; global fire probabilities; resources to burn; spatial statistical models; species distribution models.
No publisher
Fire frequency
Forest mortality
Ecosystem Services
Climate Impacts
Temperature
Forest fire
Climate and society
Climate Change
Land Use
Habitat quality
Forest Management
Heat
Temperate forests
Drought effects
Ecosystems
Economic risk(s)
Global burnt area
National Forests
2015/04/07 22:20:00 GMT-4
File
-
Cumulative Effects of Fire and Fuels Management on Stream Water Quality and Ecosystem Dynamics
https://landscapepartnership.org/maps-data/climate-context/cc-resources/ClimateSciPDFs/fire%20v%20debris%20flow.pdf
Prescribed fires and wildland fire-use are increasingly important management tools used to reduce fuel loads and restore the ecological integrity of western forests. Although a basic understanding of the effects of fire on aquatic ecosystems exists, the cumulative and possibly synergistic effects of wildfire following prescribed fire are unknown. Wildfires following prescribed fire may produce different burn severities and effects on riparian and stream ecosystems than wildfires in fire suppressed forests (e.g., fires absent >70 yrs) or prescribed fires alone. The goal of this study was to quantify and compare the effects of wildfire on stream and riparian ecosystems under three fire management practices: (1) wildfire following prescribed fire, (2) wildfire in fire suppressed forests, and (3) wildfire occurring at historic fire return intervals. We compared 6-7 years (2001-2006/07) of stream and riparian data collected prior to two large wildfire events to 3 years (2008-2010) of similar data collected after wildfire in catchments along the South Fork Salmon River and Big Creek in central Idaho. Here we report our preliminary findings on riparian- and catchment-level burn severity patterns, riparian forest structure, hydrology, amphibians, aquatic macroinvertebrates, periphyton, and instream habitat, including temperature, chemistry, substrate, sedimentation, and large woody debris. We found that the management practice of prescribed fire treatment prior to wildfire significantly reduced wildfire burn severity patterns in treated catchments relative to untreated catchments. This reduction in burn severity appeared to reduce wildfire effects on stream and riparian ecosystems rather than cause cumulative effects of prescribed fire plus wildfire. Instead, we found that the effects of natural inter-annual variability in stream flow and stochastic disturbances, such as debris flows and channel scouring events, are the dominant drivers of change in stream and riparian habitats in this region, with fire management practices playing a much smaller role.
No publisher
Management
Forest fire
Prescribed fire
Forests
Fire frequency
Riparian systems
Downstream transport
Fire
Fire-on-fire
Forest Management
Climate Change
Habitat quality
Streamflow
Floods
Water quality
Streams
Fisheries
Return period
Sediment
Large woody debris
Dead wood
Land Use
Debris
2015/04/07 22:20:00 GMT-4
File
-
Conifer regeneration following stand-replacing wildfire varies along an elevation gradient in a ponderosa pine forest, Oregon, USA
https://landscapepartnership.org/maps-data/climate-context/cc-resources/ClimateSciPDFs/Dodson%20and%20Root%202013%20regen.pdf
Climate change is expected to increase disturbances such as stand-replacing wildfire in many ecosystems, which have the potential to drive rapid turnover in ecological communities. Ecosystem recovery, and therefore maintenance of critical structures and functions (resilience), is likely to vary across environmental gradients such as moisture availability, but has received little study. We examined conifer regeneration a decade following complete stand-replacing wildfire in dry coniferous forests spanning a 700 m elevation gradient where low elevation sites had relatively high moisture stress due to the combination of high temperature and low precipitation. Conifer regeneration varied strongly across the elevation gradient, with little tree regeneration at warm and dry low elevation sites. Logistic regression models predicted rapid increases in regeneration across the elevation gradient for both seedlings of all conifer species and ponderosa pine seedlings individually. This pattern was especially pronounced for well-established seedlings (P38 cm in height). Graminoids dominated lower elevation sites following wildfire, which may have added to moisture stress for seedlings due to competition for water. These results suggest moisture stress can be a critical factor limiting conifer regeneration following stand- replacing wildfire in dry coniferous forests, with predicted increases in temperature and drought in the coming century likely to increase the importance of moisture stress. Strongly moisture limited forested sites may fail to regenerate for extended periods after stand-replacing disturbance, suggesting these sites are high priorities for management intervention where maintaining forests is a priority.
No publisher
Wildfire
Elevation
Dessication
Forest fire
Terrestrial ecosystems
Grasses
Temperature
Conifers
Forests
Global warming
Temperate forests
Moisture
Climate Change
Drought effects
Low elevation
High elevation
Resilience
Pine
Drought
2015/04/07 22:20:00 GMT-4
File