Human alteration of fire regimes is a hallmark of the Anthropocene; yet few studies have fully explored the implications of utilizing high-intensity fires in grasslands and savannas to manage shrub encroachment. Decades of fire research in South Africa inspired a unique convergence of high-intensity fire experiments in the USA. In the Great Plains of North America, high-intensity fire trials were designed to remove traditional investigator constraints that minimised variability in fire intensity and to explore woody mortality thresholds across a broader suite of experimental conditions. At the same time, studies in the Kruger National Park, South Africa, similarly investigated high-intensity fires to examine previously unstudied relationships between high-intensity fires and woody encroachment. These scientific pursuits have contributed to theoretical advances in our understanding of fire-vegetation dynamics. In this paper, we synthesise these high-intensity fire experiments, the empirical evidence emerging from them and their importance for managing grassland and savanna ecosystems, and the lessons learned and challenges ahead to maintaining critical ranges of variation in fire regimes during the Anthropocene.

人类改变火势是人类世的标志。然而，很少有研究充分探讨在草原和稀树草原利用高强度火灾来管理灌木侵占的意​​义。南非数十年的火灾研究激发了美国高强度火灾实验的独特融合。在北美大平原，高强度火灾试验旨在消除传统的研究人员限制，最大限度地减少火灾强度的可变性，并在更广泛的实验条件下探索木本死亡率阈值。与此同时，在南非克鲁格国家公园进行的研究也对高强度火灾进行了类似的研究，以检验以前未研究过的高强度火灾与木材侵占之间的关系。这些科学追求为我们理解火灾植被动力学的理论进步做出了贡献。在本文中，我们综合了这些高强度火灾实验、从中得出的经验证据及其对管理草原和稀树草原生态系统的重要性，以及在人类世期间维持火灾状态关键变化范围的经验教训和未来挑战。