The estimation of post-fire vegetation recovery is essential for forest management and wildfire policy-making. In the last few decades, vegetation indices have been widely used to monitor post-fire vegetation recovery by comparison with the pre-fire state. In this study, vegetation recovery is estimated using Solar-Induced chlorophyll Fluorescence (SIF), which is a by-product of photosynthesis and

Wildfires are an important driver of land degradation, with detrimental impacts on soil properties, usually leading to decreasing soil fertility and erosion, which affect vegetation recovery. This study investigates the long-term impact of wildfires on topsoil horizons and vegetation in Bosnia and Herzegovina, where land degradation is causing significant economic and ecological losses. Ten years after

History of prescription burning and wildfires in the three Sierra Nevada National Park Service (NPS) parks and adjacent US Forest Service (USFS) forests is presented. Annual prescription (Rx) burns began in 1968 in Sequoia and Kings Canyon National Parks, followed by Yosemite National Park and Lassen Volcanic National Park. During the last third of the 20th century, USFS national forests adjacent to

This paper analyses the factors behind wildfire propagation in a Mediterranean European country, Portugal, using a set of variables related to vegetation and climatic, topography and human aspects. Spatial cluster analysis was used to find homogeneous regions, and two-part regression models were used to model the contribution of the different elements driving extensive fire propagation. Our findings

Forest fire risk in Finland is estimated with the Finnish Forest Fire Index (FFI), which predicts the fuel moisture content (FMC) of the forest floor. We studied the FMC variation of four typical ground vegetation fuels, Pleurozium schreberi, Hylocomium splendens, Dicranum spp., and Cladonia spp., and raw humus in mature and recently clear-cut stands. Of these, six were sub-xeric Pinus sylvestris stands

The distribution of fuels is recognised as a key driver of wildland fire behaviour. However, our understanding of how fuel density heterogeneity affects fire behaviour is limited because of the challenges associated with experiments that isolate fuel heterogeneity from other factors. Advances in fire behaviour modelling and computational resources provide a means to explore fire behaviour responses

Straw mulch is commonly applied to land after high-severity wildfires because of its effectiveness in reducing post-fire runoff and erosion. However, information about the effect on vegetation recovery is still scarce and usually limited to the first 2 years after wildfire. In this study, the effects of straw helimulching on vegetation recovery and species composition were assessed in 30 experimental

Daily, fine-scale spatially explicit wildland fire occurrence prediction (FOP) models can inform fire management decisions. Many different data-driven modelling methods have been used for FOP. Several studies use multiple modelling methods to develop a set of candidate models for the same region, which are then compared against one another to choose a final model. We demonstrate that the methodologies

The devastating bushfires of the 2019–20 summer are arguably the most costly natural disaster in Australian recorded history. What is little known is that these fires severely affected the temperate highland peat swamps on sandstone (THPSS), a form of upland wetland that occurs in the water supply catchments of Sydney in the Greater Blue Mountains World Heritage Area and National Park. During the fires

US fire scientists are developing Potential Wildfire Operational Delineations, also known as ‘PODs’, as a pre-fire season planning tool to promote safe and effective wildland fire response, strengthen risk management approaches in fire management and better align fire management objectives. PODs are a collaborative planning approach based on spatial analytics to identify potential wildfire control

Catastrophic wildfires are often a result of dynamic fire behaviours. They can cause rapid escalation of fire behaviour, increasing the danger to ground-based emergency personnel. To date, few studies have characterised merging fire behaviours outside the laboratory. The aim of this study was to develop a simple, fast and accurate method to track fire front propagation using emerging technologies to

Wildfires have increasingly damaged Andean tropical forests. However, both a poor understanding of wildfire dynamics and ecosystem response limits awareness about the magnitude of the problem and design management strategies. We estimate the impacts and significant drivers of wildfires by dating and mapping recent wildfires in an Andean tropical forest area, the Iguaque mountains. A large part of Iguaque

The increased frequency and spread of tropical peat fires over the last two decades have attracted global attention because they cause significant environmental and health impacts at local to global scales. To understand the relative importance of key factors controlling tropical peatland burning events, we developed PeatFire, an agent-based model simulating the interaction between human-induced ignitions

A significant amount of research has examined what motivates people living in fire-prone areas to mitigate their wildfire risk (i.e. engage in activities that reduce vulnerability and the effects of a wildfire on an individual’s property). However, drawing overarching conclusions from this research is difficult because of the myriad of ways researchers have measured and analysed wildfire risk mitigation

Throughout history California has been subjected to large catastrophic wildfires and the trend seems to be accelerating in recent years. We analysed and mapped the spatial–temporal patterns of predicted wildfire occurrence across California from 2000 until the end of the century. We identified areas that are extremely vulnerable to wildfires and analysed the threat to the wildland–urban interface and

This paper examines the relationship between local elections and wildfire. Using data of wildfires in Greek municipalities between 2000 and 2010, I estimate models comparing wildfire outcomes in local election years against non-election years. I find that wildfire occurrence and burned area are systematically lower in the years around local elections. In municipalities where incumbents run for re-election

The initiation and spread of wildfires depend, among others, on the live fuel moisture content (LFMC) in plants. Whereas the intrinsic and environmental drivers of LFMC in individual plants are fairly well understood, less is known about ecological interactions potentially affecting LFMC in diverse plant communities. Here, we asked how the interaction between climate and species diversity affects the

An automated burned area extraction routine that attempts to overcome the particular difficulties of remote sensing applications in complex landscapes is presented and tested in the mountainous region of northwest Yunnan, China. In particular, the lack of burned samples to use for training and testing, the rugged relief, the small size of fires and the constant presence of clouds during the rainy season

Identifying the number of firebrands generated during wildfires is an important aspect of understanding their propagation. A key challenge in quantifying the number of firebrands released is to distinguish those that are ‘hot’ and could lead to further fire spread from the total number released. Recently, a fire-resistant fabric was used to quantify the number of ‘hot’ firebrands released from different

Various classifications of fuel accumulation models are used to describe the complex temporal relationship between fuel loads and vegetation dynamics. Fuel accumulation models are an important tool in wildfire management as fuel is the only component that can be directly controlled by fire managers. Here we discuss various strengths and limitations of analytical fuel accumulation models that exist

This paper identifies key fire history and fire-related spatial databases that can be utilised for effective planning and assessment of prescribed burns in south-eastern Queensland. To ensure that appropriate fire regimes are maintained for specific management objectives (e.g. biodiversity conservation or risk management), and to assist fire managers with planning prescribed fire and post-fire assessments

We used a value of information approach to demonstrate the cost-effectiveness of using satellite imagery as part of the Burn Area Emergency Response (BAER), a US federal program that identifies imminent post-wildfire threats to human life and safety, property and critical natural or cultural resources. We compared the costs associated with producing a Burn Area Reflectance Classification map and implementing

The public health emergency associated with the 2019–20 bushfires in Australia was a wake-up call to increase the resilience of our health systems to respond to climate extremes. We must combine our understanding of predictions of extreme weather events with our knowledge on emergency preparedness and response to protect the health of citizens.

Soil moisture depletion during the growing season can induce plant water stress, thereby driving declines in grassland fuel moisture and accelerating curing. These drying and curing dynamics and their dependencies on soil moisture are inadequately represented in fire danger models. To elucidate these relationships, grassland fuelbed characteristics and soil moisture were monitored in nine patches of

The climate of the south-western United States and northern Mexico borderlands is marked by a bimodal precipitation regime with the majority of moisture arriving during the cool season via Pacific frontal storm systems, and intense convective storms during the North American Monsoon (NAM). The fire season occurs primarily during the arid foresummer in May and June, before the development of the NAM

National and regional preparedness level (PL) designations support decisions about wildfire risk management. Such decisions occur across the fire season and influence pre-positioning of resources in areas of greatest fire potential, recall of personnel from off-duty status, requests for back-up resources from other areas, responses to requests to share resources with other regions during fire events

Biomass fires in Indonesia emit high levels of greenhouse gases and particulate matter, key contributors to global climate change and poor air quality in south-east Asia. In order to better understand the drivers of biomass fires across Indonesia over multiple years, we examined the distribution and probability of fires in Sumatra, Kalimantan (Indonesian Borneo) and Papua (western New Guinea) over

There has been an increasing interest in the economic health cost from smoke exposure from wildfires in the past 20 years, particularly in the north-western USA that is reflected in an emergent literature. In this review, we provide an overview and discussion of studies since 2006 on the health impacts of wildfire smoke and of approaches for the estimation of the associated economic cost. We focus

From a western society’s perspective, wildfires are catastrophic events that jeopardise biodiversity and cause soil erosion, not to mention risk to human lives and properties. However, many Mediterranean-type ecosystems are not only resilient to wildfires but sensitive to the lack of wildfires. This communication focuses on the Mediterranean heathland or herriza as a paradigmatic fire-prone ecosystem

Prescribed burning is a common land management tool used to reduce fuels, emulate the effects of wildfire and increase heterogeneity in fire-prone ecosystems. However, the forest structure created by prescribed burning is likely to be dissimilar to that produced by wildfire. We used three-dimensional estimates of canopy bulk density (CBD) from lidar data to explore the relationship between fire type

The simultaneous occurrence of wildfire can hinder firefighting effectiveness via multiple mechanisms that might explain historical resource demand trends. We validate this hypothesis by using data from the Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity (MTBS) project to determine if simultaneous wildfire occurrence is correlated with preparedness levels and examine potential changes in simultaneous wildfire activity

Several studies have separately explored accumulation of the dominant fuels (grass, fine litter (<6 mm diameter) and coarse woody debris (CWD, 6–50 mm diameter)) in north Australian savannas. We report an analysis of two longitudinal datasets describing how these three fuel components covary in abundance throughout the year in eucalypt-dominated savanna over a rainfall gradient of 700–1700 mm mean

As wildfires occurring at the wildland–urban interface (WUI) continue to become more severe, there is an increasing need to understand human behaviour in these situations, and evacuation decision-making in particular. To contribute to this understanding, an online survey (using both mail and online sampling methods) was disseminated to households impacted by the 2016 Chimney Tops 2 fire in Tennessee

Fire management agencies use fire behaviour simulation tools to predict the potential spread of a fire in both risk planning and operationally during wildfires. These models are generally based on underlying empirical or quasi-empirical relations and rarely are uncertainties considered. Little attention has been given to the quality of the input data used during operational fire predictions. We examined

Wildland fires are globally widespread, constituting the primary forest disturbance in many ecosystems. Burn severity (fire-induced change to vegetation and soils) has short-term impacts on erosion and post-fire environments, and persistent effects on forest regeneration, making burn severity data important for managers and scientists. Analysts can create atlases of historical and recent burn severity

The focus of this paper was the development of surface organic layer severity maps for the 2014 and 2015 fires in the Great Slave Lake area of the Northwest Territories and Alberta, Canada, using multiple linear regression models generated from pairing field data with Landsat 8 data. Field severity data were collected at 90 sites across the region, together with other site metrics, in order to develop

Fire in wetlands is poorly understood, yet hazard reduction burns are a common management practice and bushfires are becoming increasingly prevalent because of climate change. Fire may have long-lasting implications for the microbial component of these wetland ecosystems that regulate carbon and nutrient cycling. The extremely fire-prone Blue Mountains World Heritage Area in south-eastern Australia

The Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) products are the most used in burned-area monitoring, on regional and global scales. This research aims to evaluate the accuracy of the MODIS burned-area and active-fire products to describe fire patterns in Brazil in the period 2001–2015. The accuracy analysis, in the year 2015, compared the MODIS products (MCD45/MCD64) and the burned areas

After generations of fire-suppression policy, Indigenous fire management (IFM) is being reactivated as one way to mitigate wildfire in fire-prone ecosystems. Research has documented that IFM also mitigates carbon emissions, improves livelihoods and enhances well-being among participants. This study documents the goals of the Yunesit’in and Xeni Gwet’in First Nations as they develop a fire management

It is not well understood if wildfires induce soil water repellency in broadleaf deciduous forests, such as those endemic to the Blue Ridge Mountains of the eastern United States. In 2016, widespread wildfires provided an opportunity to study soil water repellency in this region. We selected sites in four locations with low to moderate burn severities, along with unburned controls. We estimated soil

Litterfall production and composition, fall pattern and nutrient content were studied in a mixed stand of Pinus nigra and Pinus pinaster (El Pozuelo), as well as in a pure stand of Pinus nigra (Beteta) in the Cuenca Mountains in order to determine the effect of two-season prescribed burning treatments. Needles were the most abundant fraction. Pinecone fraction decreased after burning in the mixed stand

This work reports characteristics of embers generated by torching trees and seeks to identify the important physical and biological factors involved. The size of embers, number flux and propensity to ignite spot fires (i.e. number flux of ‘hot’ embers) are reported for several tree species under different combinations of number (one, three or five) and moisture content (11–193%). Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga

Fire is an essential ecological process and management tool for many forested landscapes, particularly the pine (Pinus spp.) forests of the southern USA. Within the Talladega National Forest in Alabama, where restoration and maintenance of pine ecosystems is a priority, fire frequency (both wild and prescribed) was assessed using a geographical process applied to a fire history database. Two methods

Smoke emissions from wildland fires contribute to concentrations of atmospheric particulate matter and greenhouse gases, influencing public health and climate. Prediction of emissions is critical for smoke management to mitigate the effects on visibility and air quality. Models that predict emissions require estimates of the amount of combustible biomass. When measurements are unavailable, fuel maps

The slow-moving flameless burning of wildland fuels (i.e. smouldering) can be difficult to detect and challenging to extinguish. Although previous research involving the smouldering of organic fuels (e.g. cotton, cellulose, peat) has investigated the influence of various fuel characteristics (e.g. moisture content, inorganic content, bulk density) on spread rate and surface temperatures, the smouldering

Variations in the degree of seed dormancy expressed among conspecific populations provide a basis for improving understanding of the mechanisms controlling species persistence, especially in fire-prone ecosystems. We investigated seed germination of 12 Anigozanthos flavidus populations in response to various fire-related cues that included exposure to karrikinolide, glyceronitrile and smoke water at

Because wildfires alter plant communities, we describe the effects of a single fire event on the composition and diversity of Amazonian ferruginous savannas, locally known as cangas. We installed 20 observation plots in burned and unburned parts of a homogeneous canga site from the Carajás Massif. The single fire event shifted community composition slightly, increased functional richness and the abundance

Fire danger indices integrate weather and fuel variables to indicate the potential for wildland fires to ignite, spread, resist suppression and cause damage. McArthur’s Forest Fire Danger Index (FFDI) is applied across much of Australia, with the forecast daily maximum value used to inform fire management planning decisions and issuance of public warnings. Variations in daily maximum FFDI and the hourly

Sutherland et al. (2020) used simulations from a physics-based numerical fire behaviour model to investigate the effect of the ignition protocol (namely length, direction and rate of ignition) on the spread rates measured in experimental fires. They concluded that the methods used by Cruz et al. (2015) were inadequate as the fires were not spreading at the pseudo-steady state when rate of spread measurements

Determining burned area in Canada across fire management agencies is challenging because of different mapping scales and methods. The inconsistent removal of unburned islands and water features from within burned polygon perimeters further complicates the problem. To improve the determination of burned area, the Canada Centre for Mapping and Earth Observation and the Canadian Forest Service developed

In 2009, new guidance for wildland fire management in the United States expanded the range of strategic options for managers working to reduce the threat of high-severity wildland fire, improve forest health and respond to a changing climate. Markedly, the new guidance provided greater flexibility to manage wildland fires to meet multiple resource objectives. We use Incident Status Summary reports

A survey was undertaken in the Great Sandy Desert, Western Australia, to document changes in total plant species richness and the richness of plants of significance to Aboriginal people, with time since fire. Species richness was highest in the early post-fire seral stages, then declined with time as ‘fire ephemerals’ completed their life cycle. Culturally significant plants, which comprised ~42% of

Wildfires are disturbances that affect forest structure and dynamics. Forests and the atmosphere interact in different ways; one is by emitting carbon (C) through wildfires and recapturing it by photosynthesis of regrowing vegetation. Estimation of C emissions and uptake allows monitoring and inventorying C at stand, landscape, or regional levels. We indirectly estimated C and other greenhouse gas

Mechanical mastication is a fuels treatment that shreds midstorey trees and shrubs into a compacted woody fuel layer to abate fire hazards in fire-prone ecosystems. Increased surface fuel loading from mastication may, however, lead to undesirable fire intensity, long-duration flaming or smouldering, and undesirable residual tree mortality. Two major questions facing fuels managers are: how long do

The probabilities of forest fires in Mexico are estimated using information on precipitation and temperature, along with data on type of vegetation, human activities near forests and fire prevention policies. The proposed model addresses the factors that account for extreme wildfire hazard, and may provide a basis for fire prevention actions, reducing vulnerability factors.

Prescribed burning is a critical tool for managing wildfire risks and meeting ecological objectives, but its safe and effective application requires that specific meteorological criteria (a ‘burn window’) are met. Here, we evaluate the potential impacts of projected climatic change on prescribed burning in the south-eastern United States by applying a set of burn window criteria that capture temperature

The Changbai Mountains forest ecosystem is one of the best-preserved temperate mountain forest ecosystems in Asia. Since the establishment of the reserve in 1960, extensive forest fires have been excluded as a result of strict regulation and suppression efforts and thus fuels have accumulated for several decades. Due to the lack of historical fire records in the area, the risk of fire occurrence cannot

Over the last century, northern coastal scrub has encroached into open grasslands along the central California coast, increasing fire risk in coastal wildland–urban interfaces. Understanding prehistoric ecological conditions is crucial for fire mitigation projects. Current estimates of these conditions in coastal California grasslands and shrublands are largely speculative because tree ring data, lake

The Weather Research and Forecasting (WRF) model was used to simulate fire weather for the south-west of Western Australia (SWWA) over multiple decades at a 5-km resolution using lateral boundary conditions from the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) Re-Analysis (ERA)-Interim reanalysis. Simulations were compared with observations at Australian Bureau of Meteorology meteorological

Assessing wildfire regimes and their environmental drivers is critical for effective land management and conservation. We used Landsat imagery to describe the wildfire regime of the north-eastern Simpson Desert (Australia) between 1972 and 2014, and to quantify the relationship between wildfire extent and rainfall. Wildfires occurred in 15 of the 42 years, but only 27% of the study region experienced