Severity of a megafire reduced by interactions of wildland fire suppression operations and previous burns
Bibliographic Data
| ID | 15547239 |
|---|---|
| Authors | Lucas B Harris (0000-0002-1416-5645, University of Vermont, corresponding author), Calvin A Farris (0000-0001-9748-4432, National Park Service), Dani Niziolek (Pennsylvania State University), Alan H Taylor (Pennsylvania State University) |
| Year | 2024 |
| Volume | 19 |
| Issue | 11 |
| Pages | 114070-114070 |
| Publication date | 2024-10-08 |
| Peer Reviewed | Yes |
| Open Access | Yes |
| Type | ARTICLE |
| Venue | Environmental Research Letters (JOURNAL) |
| Journal identifiers | ISSN: 1748-9326 • E-ISSN: 1748-9326 |
| Publisher | IOP Publishing (PUBLISHER • GB) |
| DOI | 10.1088/1748-9326/ad8462 |
| OpenAlex | W4403222650 |
| Language | EN |
| References cited | 60 |
Burned area and proportion of high severity fire have been increasing in the western USA, and reducing wildfire severity with fuel treatments or other means is key for maintaining fire-prone dry forests and avoiding fire-catalyzed forest loss. Despite the unprecedented scope of firefighting operations in recent years, their contribution to patterns of wildfire severity is rarely quantified. Here we investigate how wildland fire suppression operations and past fire severity interacted to affect severity patterns of the northern third of the 374 000 ha Dixie Fire, the largest single fire in California history. We developed a map of the intensity and type of suppression operations and a statistical model of the Composite Burn Index (CBI) including weather, fuels, and terrain variables during the fire to quantify the importance of operations and prior fires on wildfire severity. Wildfire severity was estimated without operations and previous fires and then compared with modeled severity under observed conditions. Previous low and moderate-severity fire without operations decreased CBI by 38% and 19% respectively. Heavy operations and offensive firing in the footprint of past fires lowered fire severity even more compared to prior fire alone. Medium operations and defensive firing reduced but did not eliminate the moderating effects of past fires. This analysis demonstrates important interactions between suppression operations and previous burns that drive patterns of fire severity and vegetation dynamics in post-fire landscapes. Given the need to reduce wildfire severity to maintain forest resilience, particularly with a warming climate, increased attention to using operations and severity patterns of previous fires known to reduce wildfire severity in megafires are likely to increase forest resilience and improve ecological outcomes
Atmospheric sciences · Fire protection · Wildfire suppression · Environmental Science · Fire effects on ecosystems · Medicine · Emergency Medicine · Geology
Increasing western US forest wildfire activity
Variable selection using random forests
Development of gridded surface meteorological data for ecological applications and modelling
PDP
Greedy function approximation
Random Forests
High-severity fire
Severity patterns of the 2021 Dixie Fire exemplify the need to increase low-severity fire treatments in California’s forests
Wildland fire reburning trends across the US West suggest only short-term negative feedback and differing climatic effects
Identifying opportunity hot spots for reducing the risk of wildfire-caused carbon loss in western US conifer forests
| Citation velocity | historical |
|---|---|
| Highly cited | No |