Prescribed fire in North American forests and woodlands: history, current practice, and challenges
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors summarize fire use in the forests and woodlands of North America and the current state of the practice, and explore challenges associated with the use of prescribed fire.
Abstract: Whether ignited by lightning or by Native Americans, fire once shaped many North American ecosystems. Euro-American settlement and 20th-century fire suppression practices drastically altered historic fire regimes, leading to excessive fuel accumulation and uncharacteristically severe wildfires in some areas and diminished flammability resulting from shifts to more fire-sensitive forest species in others. Prescribed fire is a valuable tool for fuel management and ecosystem restoration, but the practice is fraught with controversy and uncertainty. Here, we summarize fire use in the forests and woodlands of North America and the current state of the practice, and explore challenges associated with the use of prescribed fire. Although new scientific knowledge has reduced barriers to prescribed burning, societal aversion to risk often trumps known, long-term ecological benefits. Broader implementation of prescribed burning and strategic management of wildfires in fire-dependent ecosystems will require improved integration of science, policy, and management, and greater societal acceptance through education and public involvement in land-management issues.
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TL;DR: This work proposes an approach that accepts wildfire as an inevitable catalyst of change and that promotes adaptive responses by ecosystems and residential communities to more warming and wildfire.
Abstract: Wildfires across western North America have increased in number and size over the past three decades, and this trend will continue in response to further warming. As a consequence, the wildland–urban interface is projected to experience substantially higher risk of climate-driven fires in the coming decades. Although many plants, animals, and ecosystem services benefit from fire, it is unknown how ecosystems will respond to increased burning and warming. Policy and management have focused primarily on specified resilience approaches aimed at resistance to wildfire and restoration of areas burned by wildfire through fire suppression and fuels management. These strategies are inadequate to address a new era of western wildfires. In contrast, policies that promote adaptive resilience to wildfire, by which people and ecosystems adjust and reorganize in response to changing fire regimes to reduce future vulnerability, are needed. Key aspects of an adaptive resilience approach are (i) recognizing that fuels reduction cannot alter regional wildfire trends; (ii) targeting fuels reduction to increase adaptation by some ecosystems and residential communities to more frequent fire; (iii) actively managing more wild and prescribed fires with a range of severities; and (iv) incentivizing and planning residential development to withstand inevitable wildfire. These strategies represent a shift in policy and management from restoring ecosystems based on historical baselines to adapting to changing fire regimes and from unsustainable defense of the wildland–urban interface to developing fire-adapted communities. We propose an approach that accepts wildfire as an inevitable catalyst of change and that promotes adaptive responses by ecosystems and residential communities to more warming and wildfire.
475 citations
TL;DR: The science underpinning contemporary approaches to forest restoration practice is synthesized and some major approaches for altering structure in degraded forest stands are presented, and approaches for restoration of two key ecosystem processes, fire and flooding are described.
370 citations
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...…al. (2005), Vanha-Majamaa et al. (2007), Brockway et al. (2009), Schwilk et al. (2009), Jain and Graham (2010), Liu et al. (2012), Phillips et al. (2012), Ryan et al. (2013) and Weekley et al. (2013) Degraded forest (invasive species) Rehabilitation Invasives removal Remove invasive species (hand…...
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TL;DR: It is suggested the need to reevaluate and restructure wildfire mitigation programs aimed at reducing residential losses from wildfire, and the principles of risk analysis are proposed to provide land management agencies, first responders, and affected communities the ability to reduce the potential for loss.
Abstract: Recent fire seasons in the western United States are some of the most damaging and costly on record. Wildfires in the wildlandurban interface on the Colorado Front Range, resulting in thousands of homes burned and civilian fatalities, although devastating, are not without historical reference. These fires are consistent with the characteristics of large, damaging, interface fires that threaten communities across much of the western United States. Wildfires are inevitable, but the destruction of homes, ecosystems, and lives is not. We propose the principles of risk analysis to provide land management agencies, first responders, and affected communities who face the inevitability of wildfires the ability to reduce the potential for loss. Overcoming perceptions of wildlandurban interface fire disasters as a wildfire control problem rather than a home ignition problem, determined by home ignition conditions, will reduce home loss.
321 citations
Cites background from "Prescribed fire in North American f..."
..., burns) the same fuel components on which wildfires depend—largely surface fuels (litter, grasses, and herbaceous fuels)—the amount and condition of which is a major determinant in fire ignition, spread, and ultimately burn severity (24, 37, 38)....
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Kansas State University1, University of Montana2, Michigan State University3, Woods Hole Research Center4, University of Tennessee5, National Center for Atmospheric Research6, Tall Timbers Research Station and Land Conservancy7, University of Colorado Boulder8, Washington University in St. Louis9, University of Melbourne10, University of Nevada, Reno11, University of California, Irvine12, Boise State University13, Syracuse University14, University of Florida15, University of British Columbia16, Murdoch University17, University of Washington18, Oregon State University19, Auburn University20, Northern Arizona University21, University of Idaho22, Colgate University23, University of Amsterdam24, University of California, Santa Barbara25, Spanish National Research Council26, Stanford University27, Louisiana State University28, United States Forest Service29, University of California, Merced30, North Carolina State University31, Humboldt State University32, Davidson College33, Colorado State University34, Desert Research Institute35
TL;DR: In this paper, the diversity of ways in which fire operates as a fundamental ecological and evolutionary process on Earth is described, and the need to study fire across temporal scales, to assess the mechanisms underlying a variety of ecological feedbacks involving fire and to improve representation of fire in a range of modelling contexts.
Abstract: 1. Fire is a powerful ecological and evolutionary force that regulates organismal traits, population sizes, species interactions, community composition, carbon and nutrient cycling and ecosystem function. It also presents a rapidly growing societal challenge, due to both increasingly destructive wildfires and fire exclusion in fire-dependent ecosystems. As an ecological process, fire integrates complex feedbacks among biological, social and geophysical processes, requiring coordination across several fields and scales of study. 2. Here, we describe the diversity of ways in which fire operates as a fundamental ecological and evolutionary process on Earth. We explore research priorities in six categories of fire ecology: (a) characteristics of fire regimes, (b) changing fire regimes, (c) fire effects on above-ground ecology, (d) fire effects on below-ground ecology, (e) fire behaviour and (f) fire ecology modelling. 3. We identify three emergent themes: the need to study fire across temporal scales, to assess the mechanisms underlying a variety of ecological feedbacks involving fire and to improve representation of fire in a range of modelling contexts. 4. Synthesis: As fire regimes and our relationships with fire continue to change, prioritizing these research areas will facilitate understanding of the ecological causes and consequences of future fires and rethinking fire management alternatives.
224 citations
TL;DR: Jansen et al. as mentioned in this paper, 2005. Dyes and tannins: Plant Resources of Tropical Africa 3.1.1, published by The New York Botanical Garden Press, Bronx, NY 10458-5126 U.S.
Abstract: © 2006, by The New York Botanical Garden Press, Bronx, NY 10458-5126 U.S.A. Plant Resources of Tropical Africa 3. Dyes and tannins. Jansen, P. C. M. and D. Cardon, eds. 2005. PROTA Foundation, Backhuys Publishers, Leiden, Netherlands/CTA, Wageningen, Netherlands. 216 pp. (paperback). a 25 (book only, industrialized countries), a 32 (book plus CD, Industrialized countries), a 12.50 (book only, developing countries), a 16 (book plus CD, developing countries). ISBN 90-5782-159-7 (book only), ISBN 90-5782-160-5 (book + CD-ROM).
202 citations
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TL;DR: It is shown that large wildfire activity increased suddenly and markedly in the mid-1980s, with higher large-wildfire frequency, longer wildfire durations, and longer wildfire seasons.
Abstract: Western United States forest wildfire activity is widely thought to have increased in recent decades, yet neither the extent of recent changes nor the degree to which climate may be driving regional changes in wildfire has been systematically documented. Much of the public and scientific discussion of changes in western United States wildfire has focused instead on the effects of 19th- and 20th-century land-use history. We compiled a comprehensive database of large wildfires in western United States forests since 1970 and compared it with hydroclimatic and land-surface data. Here, we show that large wildfire activity increased suddenly and markedly in the mid-1980s, with higher large-wildfire frequency, longer wildfire durations, and longer wildfire seasons. The greatest increases occurred in mid-elevation, Northern Rockies forests, where land-use histories have relatively little effect on fire risks and are strongly associated with increased spring and summer temperatures and an earlier spring snowmelt.
4,701 citations
"Prescribed fire in North American f..." refers background in this paper
...Since then, the trend has been toward increasing wildfire activity (Westerling et al. 2006; Littell et al. 2009), despite extensive suppression efforts....
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TL;DR: It is argued that the success of organizations depends on their ability to design themselves as social learning systems and also to participate in broader learning systems such as an industry, a region, or a consortium.
Abstract: This essay argues that the success of organizations depends on their ability to design themselves as social learning systems and also to participate in broader learning systems such as an industry, a region, or a consortium. It explores the structure of these social learning systems. It proposes a social definition of learning and distinguishes between three `modes of belonging' by which we participate in social learning systems. Then it uses this framework to look at three constitutive elements of these systems: communities of practice, boundary processes among these communities, and identities as shaped by our participation in these systems.
4,003 citations
"Prescribed fire in North American f..." refers background in this paper
...These “communities of practice” (Wenger 2000) have been influential in the legislative process and in the training and education of managers and land owners....
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Book•
01 Jan 1993
TL;DR: The Fire Ecology of Pacific Northwest Forests as discussed by the authors is a historical, analytical, and ecological approach to the effects and use of fire in Pacific Northwest wildlands, which provides an essential base of knowledge for all others interested in wildland management who wish to understand the ecological effects of fire.
Abstract: It was once widely believed that landscapes become increasingly stable over time until eventually reaching a "climax state" of complete stability. In recent years, however, that idea has been challenged by a new understanding of the importance and inevitability of forces such as storms and fires that keep ecosystems in a state of constant change. The dynamics of fire ecology has emerged as a central feature of the new understanding as scientists and land managers redefine traditional assumptions about the growth and development of ecosystems. Fire Ecology of Pacific Northwest Forests is a historical, analytical, and ecological approach to the effects and use of fire in Pacific Northwest wildlands. James K. Agee, a leading expert in the emerging field of fire ecology, analyzes the ecological role of fire in the creation and maintenance of the natural forests common to most of the western United States. In addition to examining fire from an ecological perspective, he provides insight into its historical and cultural aspects, and also touches on some of the political issues that influence the use and control of fire in the United States. In addition to serving as a sourcebook for natural area managers interested in restoring or maintaining fire regimes in Pacific Northwest wildlands, this volume provides an essential base of knowledge for all others interested in wildland management who wish to understand the ecological effects of fire. Although the chapters on the ecology of specific forest zones focus on the Pacific Northwest, much of the book addresses issues not unique to that region.
2,017 citations
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...Agee JK. 1993....
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TL;DR: In the early sixteenth century, the Native American landscape was a humanized landscape almost everywhere as mentioned in this paper, where forests had been modified, grasslands had been created, wild-life disrupted, and erosion was severe in places.
Abstract: The myth persists that in 1492 the Americas were a sparsely populated wilder- ness, "a world of barely perceptible human disturbance." There is substantial evidence, however, that the Native American landscape of the early sixteenth century was a humanized landscape almost everywhere. Populations were large. Forest composition had been modified, grasslands had been created, wild- life disrupted, and erosion was severe in places. Earthworks, roads, fields, and settle- ments were ubiquitous. With Indian depopu- lation in the wake of Old World disease, the environment recovered in many areas. A good argument can be made that the human pres- ence was less visible in 1750 than it was in 1492.
1,266 citations
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...Denevan WM. 1992....
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TL;DR: In this paper, the authors summarize a set of simple principles important to address in fuel reduction treatments: reduction of surface fuels, increasing the height to live crown, decreasing crown density, and retaining large trees of fire resistant species.
1,213 citations