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

Fire frequency has decreased in many shrub-steppe communities. Re-introducing fire may be needed to increase spatial and temporal variability in vegetation, but is often hindered by concerns of undesired vegetation shifts. These concerns arise, in part, because long-term effects of fire re-introduction in these communities after prolonged fire exclusion and other departures from historical conditions

The ‘Balbi model’ is a simplified steady-state physical propagation model for surface fires that considers radiative heat transfer from the surface area of burning fuel particles as well as from the flame body. In this work, a completely new version of this propagation model for wildand fires is proposed. Even if, in the present work, this model is confined to laboratory experiments, its purpose is

Historical fire regimes are critical for understanding the potential effects of changing climate and human land-use on forest landscapes. Fire is a major disturbance process affecting the Andean Araucaria forest landscape in north-west Patagonia. The main goals of this study were to reconstruct the fire history of the Andean Araucaria–Nothofagus forests and to evaluate the coupled influences of climate

Improving decision processes and the informational basis upon which decisions are made in pursuit of safer and more effective fire response have become key priorities of the fire research community. One area of emphasis is bridging the gap between fire researchers and managers through development of application-focused, operationally relevant decision support tools. In this paper we focus on a family

Wildfires in the Valparaíso region (Chile) account for one of the main threats to local biodiversity, ecosystem services and infrastructure. This study focused on producing an initial record of thermo- and physicochemical properties of local forest species. For this purpose, leaf samples of species found in the Peñuelas Lake National Reserve, namely Pinus radiata, Eucalyptus globulus, Acacia dealbata

Fire is used extensively in prairie grassland management in the Flint Hills region of the midwestern United States, particularly at the end of the dormant season (March–April). A model is used to manage grassland fires in the region to avoid deterioration of air quality beyond acceptable standards. Dormant season dry biomass is an important parameter in the model. The commonly used method for producing

Riparian forests link terrestrial and freshwater communities and therefore understanding the landscape context of fire regimes in these forests is critical to fully understanding the landscape ecology. However, few direct studies of fire regimes exist for riparian forests, especially in the landscape context of adjacent upland forests or studies of long-term climate drivers of riparian forest fires

Research shows that some categories of human-ignited wildfires might be forecastable, due to their temporal clustering, with the possibility that resources could be pre-deployed to help reduce the incidence of such wildfires. We estimated several kinds of incendiary and other human-ignited wildfire forecast models at the weekly time step for tribal land units in the United States, evaluating their

There is an urgent need for next-generation smoke research and forecasting (SRF) systems to meet the challenges of the growing air quality, health, and safety concerns associated with wildland fire emissions. This review paper presents simulations and experiments of hypothetical prescribed burns with a suite of selected fire behavior and smoke models and identifies major issues for model improvement