Fire is a dominant disturbance in temperate and boreal biomes, and increasing burned area with climate change may fundamentally alter forests. Improved information about how fire-induced changes to forests may feedback to affect subsequent burning at regional scales could inform forest management and climate-mitigation strategies. However, fire is simplistically represented in Earth System Models, and regional statistical fire models often assume sufficient fuels, contributing to uncertainty in future projections. To address this challenge, we developed the Dynamic Temperate and Boreal Fire and Forest-Ecosystem Simulator (DYNAFFOREST). DYNAFFOREST represents the hierarchical structuring of forests, from individual cohorts to continental extents, making it possible to simulate feedbacks between fire and forests at broad scales over decades to centuries. We parameterized DYNAFFOREST for the western United States of America and benchmarked simulations with observations. DYNAFFOREST recreated patterns of forest cover, structure, and downed fuels, and was capable of capturing average 20th-century fire activity.

火灾是温带和北方生物群落的主要干扰，随着气候变化增加燃烧面积可能会从根本上改变森林。改进有关火灾引起的森林变化如何反馈以影响区域范围内随后的燃烧的信息可以为森林管理和气候缓解战略提供信息。然而，火灾在地球系统模型中被简单地表示，并且区域统计火灾模型通常假设有足够的燃料，从而导致未来预测的不确定性。为了应对这一挑战，我们开发了动态温带和北方火灾和森林生态系统模拟器 (DYNAFFOREST)。DYNAFFOREST 代表了森林的等级结构，从单个队列到大陆范围，使得在几十年到几个世纪的大范围内模拟火灾和森林之间的反馈成为可能。我们对美国西部的 DYNAFFOREST 进行了参数化，并通过观察对模拟进行了基准测试。DYNAFFOREST 重现了森林覆盖、结构和倒下燃料的模式，并能够捕捉 20 世纪的平均火灾活动。