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Fire regimes and management options in mixed grassland-fynbos vegetation, South Africa Fire Ecol. (IF 5.1) Pub Date : 2024-03-18 Izak P. J. Smit, Johan A. Baard, Brian W. van Wilgen
Fire regimes in South African fynbos shrublands have been quantified in the western (winter rainfall) and central (aseasonal rainfall) parts. They have not been quantified at their eastern extremity (summer rainfall), where fynbos transitions to grassland and is embedded in other fire-resistant vegetation types. We assessed fire regimes at the eastern extremity of the fynbos biome and discussed the
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Branching out: species-specific canopy architecture limits live crown fuel consumption in Intermountain West USA conifers Fire Ecol. (IF 5.1) Pub Date : 2024-03-15 Elliott T. Conrad, W. Matt Jolly, Tegan P. Brown, Samuel C. Hillman
Accurate estimates of available live crown fuel loads are critical for understanding potential wildland fire behavior. Existing crown fire behavior models assume that available crown fuels are limited to all tree foliage and half of the fine branches less than 6 mm in diameter (1 h fuel). They also assume that this relationship is independent of the branchwood moisture content. Despite their widespread
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Spatial and temporal patterns and driving factors of forest fires based on an optimal parameter-based geographic detector in the Panxi region, Southwest China Fire Ecol. (IF 5.1) Pub Date : 2024-03-15 Jia Liu, Yukuan Wang, Haiyan Guo, Yafeng Lu, Yuanxin Xu, Yu Sun, Weiwei Gan, Rui Sun, Zhengyang Li
The Panxi region in China is among the areas that are most severely impacted by forest fires. Despite this, there is currently a lack of comprehensive and systematic research on the spatial and temporal distribution patterns, as well as the drivers, of forest fires in the region. To reveal bio-geo-climatic and anthropogenic influences, this study investigated the temporal and spatial characteristics
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Blanket bog vegetation response to wildfire and drainage suggests resilience to low severity, infrequent burning Fire Ecol. (IF 5.1) Pub Date : 2024-03-14 Roxane Andersen, Paula Fernandez-Garcia, Alice Martin-Walker, Daniela Klein, Chris Marshall, David J. Large, Robert Hughes, Mark H. Hancock
In 2019, a wildfire impacted an area of blanket bog and wet heath > 60 km2 in the Flow Country peatlands of northern Scotland, a site of global significance. Unusually the footprint of the wildfire included discrete areas of degraded, restored, and near-natural blanket bogs. Following the wildfire, we surveyed vegetation in 387 quadrats in burnt and unburnt areas. The study aimed to determine whether
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Global impacts of fire regimes on wildland bird diversity Fire Ecol. (IF 5.1) Pub Date : 2024-03-13 Fátima Arrogante-Funes, Inmaculada Aguado, Emilio Chuvieco
Fire is a natural disturbance that significantly impacts ecosystems and plays a crucial role in the distribution and preservation of biota worldwide. The effects of fires on bird diversity can be both positive, as they can create new habitats, and negative, as they can reduce nesting success. To fully understand the ecological implications of wildfires, we need to understand the spatial distribution
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Historical fire regimes from red pines (Pinus resinosa Ait.) across the Tension Zone in the Lower Peninsula, Michigan USA Fire Ecol. (IF 5.1) Pub Date : 2024-03-08 Michael C. Stambaugh, Joseph M. Marschall, Erin R. Abadir, Richard P. Guyette, Daniel C. Dey
Currently, no multiple century fire scar records have been constructed in the Lower Peninsula of Michigan, USA, a region where historical vegetation ranged from prairies and oak-dominated woodlands in the south to conifer-northern hardwood forests and swamps to the north. The western portion of the Huron-Manistee National Forests is located within this strong vegetation transition (i.e., “Tension Zone”)
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Assessment of forest fire severity and land surface temperature using Google Earth Engine: a case study of Gujarat State, India Fire Ecol. (IF 5.1) Pub Date : 2024-03-07 Keval H. Jodhani, Haard Patel, Utsav Soni, Rishabh Patel, Bhairavi Valodara, Nitesh Gupta, Anant Patel, Padam jee Omar
Forest fires are a recurring issue in many parts of the world, including India. These fires can have various causes, including human activities (such as agricultural burning, campfires, or discarded cigarettes) and natural factors (such as lightning). The present study presents a comprehensive and advanced methodology for assessing wildfire susceptibility by integrating diverse environmental variables
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Wildfire probability estimated from recent climate and fine fuels across the big sagebrush region Fire Ecol. (IF 5.1) Pub Date : 2024-02-28 Martin C. Holdrege, Daniel R. Schlaepfer, Kyle A. Palmquist, Michele Crist, Kevin E. Doherty, William K. Lauenroth, Thomas E. Remington, Karin Riley, Karen C. Short, John C. Tull, Lief A. Wiechman, John B. Bradford
Wildfire is a major proximate cause of historical and ongoing losses of intact big sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata Nutt.) plant communities and declines in sagebrush obligate wildlife species. In recent decades, fire return intervals have shortened and area burned has increased in some areas, and habitat degradation is occurring where post-fire re-establishment of sagebrush is hindered by invasive
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Flammability features of native and non-native woody species from the southernmost ecosystems: a review Fire Ecol. (IF 5.1) Pub Date : 2024-02-15 Octavio Toy-Opazo, Andrés Fuentes-Ramirez, Valeria Palma-Soto, Rafael A. Garcia, Kirk A. Moloney, Rodrigo Demarco, Andrés Fuentes-Castillo
Vegetation plays a crucial role in the ignition, propagation, and severity of fire, and understanding the relationship between plants and fire through flammability attributes has become a useful tool that is increasingly used in studies on fire dynamics worldwide. However, in the southern cone of South America, rather few studies have systematically and specifically addressed the flammability of vegetation
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Fire-type heat increases the germination of Cistaceae seeds in contrast to summer heat Fire Ecol. (IF 5.1) Pub Date : 2024-02-13 Byron B. Lamont, Geoffrey E. Burrows, Juli G. Pausas
Our analyses of data in Luna et al. (Fire Ecology 19:52, 2023) do not support the proposal that dormancy release of the hard seeds in 12 species of Cistaceae is a “two-step process” involving high summer temperatures followed by fire-type heat. The reverse is true: subjection to a month of daily alternating temperatures of 50/20 °C (summer heat) is more likely to induce dormancy among initially soft
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Service-learning to improve training, knowledge transfer, and awareness in forest fire management Fire Ecol. (IF 5.1) Pub Date : 2024-02-08 Pablo Souza-Alonso, Beatriz Omil, Alexandre Sotelino, David García-Romero, Eugenio Otero-Urtaza, Mar Lorenzo Moledo, Otilia Reyes, Juan Carlos Rodríguez, Javier Madrigal, Daniel Moya, Juan Ramón Molina, Francisco Rodriguez y Silva, Agustín Merino
Forest fires represent a severe threat to Mediterranean ecosystems and are considered one of the major environmental and socioeconomic problems of the region. The project Plantando cara al fuego (PCF, Spain) is designed to transfer knowledge and to improve the training of new generations in forest fire management. The project is based on the application of service-learning (S-L), an educational methodology
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Assessing changes in global fire regimes Fire Ecol. (IF 5.1) Pub Date : 2024-02-08 Sayedeh Sara Sayedi, Benjamin W. Abbott, Boris Vannière, Bérangère Leys, Daniele Colombaroli, Graciela Gil Romera, Michał Słowiński, Julie C. Aleman, Olivier Blarquez, Angelica Feurdean, Kendrick Brown, Tuomas Aakala, Teija Alenius, Kathryn Allen, Maja Andric, Yves Bergeron, Siria Biagioni, Richard Bradshaw, Laurent Bremond, Elodie Brisset, Joseph Brooks, Sandra O. Brugger, Thomas Brussel, Haidee Cadd
The global human footprint has fundamentally altered wildfire regimes, creating serious consequences for human health, biodiversity, and climate. However, it remains difficult to project how long-term interactions among land use, management, and climate change will affect fire behavior, representing a key knowledge gap for sustainable management. We used expert assessment to combine opinions about
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Forest thinning and prescribed burning treatments reduce wildfire severity and buffer the impacts of severe fire weather Fire Ecol. (IF 5.1) Pub Date : 2024-02-07 Emily G. Brodie, Eric E. Knapp, Wesley R. Brooks, Stacy A. Drury, Martin W. Ritchie
The capacity of forest fuel treatments to moderate the behavior and severity of subsequent wildfires depends on weather and fuel conditions at the time of burning. However, in-depth evaluations of how treatments perform are limited because encounters between wildfires and areas with extensive pre-fire data are rare. Here, we took advantage of a 1200-ha randomized and replicated experiment that burned
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Fuel types misrepresent forest structure and composition in interior British Columbia: a way forward Fire Ecol. (IF 5.1) Pub Date : 2024-02-07 Jennifer N. Baron, Paul F. Hessburg, Marc-André Parisien, Gregory A. Greene, Sarah. E. Gergel, Lori D. Daniels
A clear understanding of the connectivity, structure, and composition of wildland fuels is essential for effective wildfire management. However, fuel typing and mapping are challenging owing to a broad diversity of fuel conditions and their spatial and temporal heterogeneity. In Canada, fuel types and potential fire behavior are characterized using the Fire Behavior Prediction (FBP) System, which uses
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Environmental health of wildland firefighters: a scoping review Fire Ecol. (IF 5.1) Pub Date : 2024-02-05 M. Bryan Held, Miranda Rose Ragland, Sage Wood, Amelia Pearson, Seth Wayne Pearson, Olivia Chenevert, Rachel Marie Granberg, Robin Michelle Verble
Wildland firefighters are likely to experience heightened risks to safety, health, and overall well-being as changing climates increase the frequency and intensity of exposure to natural hazards. Working at the intersection of natural resource management and emergency response, wildland firefighters have multidimensional careers that often incorporate elements from disparate fields to accomplish the
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Landscape controls on fuel moisture variability in fire-prone heathland and peatland landscapes Fire Ecol. (IF 5.1) Pub Date : 2024-01-30 Kerryn Little, Laura J Graham, Mike Flannigan, Claire M Belcher, Nicholas Kettridge
Cross-landscape fuel moisture content is highly variable but not considered in existing fire danger assessments. Capturing fuel moisture complexity and its associated controls is critical for understanding wildfire behavior and danger in emerging fire-prone environments that are influenced by local heterogeneity. This is particularly true for temperate heathland and peatland landscapes that exhibit
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Using witness trees as pyro-indicators to depict past fire environments across the eastern United States Fire Ecol. (IF 5.1) Pub Date : 2024-01-30 Gregory J. Nowacki, Melissa A. Thomas-Van Gundy
Understanding past fire environments is vitally important for applying silvicultural treatments, which often include prescribed burning to restore fire-dependent ecosystems. We have developed a novel method by which witness trees can be used as pyro-indicators to map past fire environments. The stepwise process first involves partitioning witness trees into two classes, pyrophobic and pyrophilic, based
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Guiding principles for transdisciplinary and transformative fire research Fire Ecol. (IF 5.1) Pub Date : 2024-01-29 Kelsey Copes-Gerbitz, Ira J. Sutherland, Sarah Dickson-Hoyle, Jennifer N. Baron, Pablo Gonzalez-Moctezuma, Morgan A. Crowley, Katherine A. Kitchens, Tahia Devisscher, Judith Burr
Managing landscape fire is a complex challenge because it is simultaneously necessary for, and increasingly poses a risk to, societies and ecosystems worldwide. This challenge underscores the need for transformative change in the way societies live with and manage fire. While researchers have the potential to act as agents of transformative change, in practice, the ability to affect change is often
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Midwest prairie management practices benefit the non-target prairie crayfish Fire Ecol. (IF 5.1) Pub Date : 2024-01-29 Caitlin C. Bloomer, Christopher M. Miller, Robert J. DiStefano, Christopher A. Taylor
Prescribed burning is used to duplicate natural, pre-settlement prairie successional processes. It is an essential and commonly used tool to promote and protect biodiversity and enhance ecosystem function in tallgrass prairie remnants throughout the midwestern United States. The responses to prescribed burns vary widely among faunal groups. We conducted the first study into the response of the prairie
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Wildfire risk exploration: leveraging SHAP and TabNet for precise factor analysis Fire Ecol. (IF 5.1) Pub Date : 2024-01-26 Faiza Qayyum, Harun Jamil, Tariq Alsboui, Mohammad Hijjawi
Understanding the intricacies of wildfire impact across diverse geographical landscapes necessitates a nuanced comprehension of fire dynamics and areas of vulnerability, particularly in regions prone to high wildfire risks. Machine learning (ML) stands as a formidable ally in addressing the complexities associated with predicting and mapping these risks, offering advanced analytical capabilities. Nevertheless
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Plant-plant interactions influence post-fire recovery depending on fire history and nurse growth form Fire Ecol. (IF 5.1) Pub Date : 2024-01-26 Maral Bashirzadeh, Mehdi Abedi, Mohammad Farzam
Plant-plant interactions are among the most important factors affecting the natural recovery of vegetation. While the impacts of nurse plants on species composition and biodiversity are well documented, the effects of different nurse’s growth forms on all biodiversity components including taxonomic, functional, and phylogenetic diversity have been less studied and compared, especially for their effects
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Shapley-based interpretation of deep learning models for wildfire spread rate prediction Fire Ecol. (IF 5.1) Pub Date : 2024-01-25 Faiza Qayyum, Nagwan Abdel Samee, Maali Alabdulhafith, Ahmed Aziz, Mohammad Hijjawi
Predicting wildfire progression is vital for countering its detrimental effects. While numerous studies over the years have delved into forecasting various elements of wildfires, many of these complex models are perceived as “black boxes”, making it challenging to produce transparent and easily interpretable outputs. Evaluating such models necessitates a thorough understanding of multiple pivotal factors
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Cellular automata-based simulators for the design of prescribed fire plans: the case study of Liguria, Italy Fire Ecol. (IF 5.1) Pub Date : 2024-01-22 Nicoló Perello, Andrea Trucchia, Francesco Baghino, Bushra Sanira Asif, Lola Palmieri, Nicola Rebora, Paolo Fiorucci
Socio-economic changes in recent decades have resulted in an accumulation of fuel within Mediterranean forests, creating conditions conducive to potential catastrophic wildfires intensified by climate change. Consequently, several wildfire management systems have integrated prescribed fires as a proactive strategy for land management and wildfire risk reduction. The preparation of prescribed fires
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Air quality and health impacts of the 2020 wildfires in California Fire Ecol. (IF 5.1) Pub Date : 2024-01-19 Marc Carreras-Sospedra, Shupeng Zhu, Michael MacKinnon, William Lassman, Jeffrey D. Mirocha, Michele Barbato, Donald Dabdub
Wildfires in 2020 ravaged California to set the annual record of area burned to date. Clusters of wildfires in Northern California surrounded the Bay Area covering the skies with smoke and raising the air pollutant concentrations to hazardous levels. This study uses the Fire Inventory from the National Center for Atmospheric Research database and the Community Multiscale Air Quality model to estimate
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Correction: Fire severity influences large wood and stream ecosystem responses in western Oregon watersheds Fire Ecol. (IF 5.1) Pub Date : 2024-01-18 Ashley A. Coble, Brooke E. Penaluna, Laura J. Six, Jake Verschuyl
Correction: Fire Ecol 19, 34 (2023) https://doi.org/10.1186/s42408-023–00192-5 When analysing subsequent years of fish and amphibian data, the authors identified an error in some of the reach area calculations that affected vertebrate densities for some sites (density and biomass density for fish and amphibians). Specifically, the formula for reach area in some cells (5 sites) referenced wetted width
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Prescribed burning mitigates the severity of subsequent wildfires in Mediterranean shrublands Fire Ecol. (IF 5.1) Pub Date : 2024-01-17 José Manuel Fernández-Guisuraga, Paulo M. Fernandes
Prescribed burning (PB) is becoming relevant in fuel reduction and thus fire hazard abatement in fire-prone ecosystems of southern Europe. Yet, empirical evidence on the effectiveness of this practice to mitigate wildfire severity in Mediterranean shrublands is non-existent, despite being the focus of PB efforts in this region. Here, we intended to quantify the protective effect of PB treatment units
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Human influence on late Holocene fire history in a mixed-conifer forest, Sierra National Forest, California Fire Ecol. (IF 5.1) Pub Date : 2024-01-15 Anna Klimaszewski-Patterson, Theodore Dingemans, Christopher T. Morgan, Scott A. Mensing
Understanding pre-1850s fire history and its effect on forest structure can provide insights useful for fire managers in developing plans to moderate fire hazards in the face of forecasted climate change. While climate clearly plays a substantial role in California wildfires, traditional use of fire by Indigenous people also affected fire history and forest structure in the Sierra Nevada. Disentangling
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Fire regimes of the Southern Appalachians may radically shift under climate change Fire Ecol. (IF 5.1) Pub Date : 2024-01-12 Zachary J. Robbins, E. Louise Loudermilk, Tina G. Mozelewski, Kate Jones, Robert M. Scheller
Increased drought due to climate change will alter fire regimes in mesic forested landscapes where fuel moisture typically limits fire spread and where fuel loads are consistently high. These landscapes are often extensively modified by human land use change and management. We forecast the influence of varying climate scenarios on potential shifts in the wildfire regime across the mesic forests of
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Simulating long-term wildfire impacts on boreal forest structure in Central Yakutia, Siberia, since the Last Glacial Maximum Fire Ecol. (IF 5.1) Pub Date : 2024-01-04 Ramesh Glückler, Josias Gloy, Elisabeth Dietze, Ulrike Herzschuh, Stefan Kruse
Wildfires are recognized as an important ecological component of larch-dominated boreal forests in eastern Siberia. However, long-term fire-vegetation dynamics in this unique environment are poorly understood. Recent paleoecological research suggests that intensifying fire regimes may induce millennial-scale shifts in forest structure and composition. This may, in turn, result in positive feedback
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Fuel build-up promotes an increase in fire severity of reburned areas in fire-prone ecosystems of the western Mediterranean Basin Fire Ecol. (IF 5.1) Pub Date : 2023-12-12 José Manuel Fernández-Guisuraga, Leonor Calvo
Fire-vegetation feedbacks can modulate the global change effects conducive to extreme fire behavior and high fire severity of subsequent wildfires in reburn areas by altering the composition, flammability traits, and spatial arrangement of fuels. Repeated, high-severity wildfires at short return intervals may trigger long-term vegetation state transitions. However, empirical evidence about these feedbacks
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Predicting snag fall in an old-growth forest after fire Fire Ecol. (IF 5.1) Pub Date : 2023-11-23 Kendall M. L. Becker, James A. Lutz
Snags, standing dead trees, are becoming more abundant in forests as tree mortality rates continue to increase due to fire, drought, and bark beetles. Snags provide habitat for birds and small mammals, and when they fall to the ground, the resulting logs provide additional wildlife habitat and affect nutrient cycling, fuel loads, and fire behavior. Predicting how long snags will remain standing after
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Fuel treatment response groups for fire-prone sagebrush landscapes Fire Ecol. (IF 5.1) Pub Date : 2023-11-21 Jeanne C. Chambers, Jessi L. Brown, Matthew C. Reeves, Eva K. Strand, Lisa M. Ellsworth, Claire M. Tortorelli, Alexandra K. Urza, Karen C. Short
Sagebrush shrublands in the Great Basin, USA, are experiencing widespread increases in wildfire size and area burned resulting in new policies and funding to implement fuel treatments. However, we lack the spatial data needed to optimize the types and locations of fuel treatments across large landscapes and mitigate fire risk. To address this, we developed treatment response groups (TRGs)—sagebrush
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Nitrogen allocation in PM2.5 smoke-exposed plants: implications for ecosystem nitrogen cycling and stress response Fire Ecol. (IF 5.1) Pub Date : 2023-11-14 Haichuan Lin, Yuanfan Ma, Pingxin Zhao, Ziyan Huang, Xiaoyu Zhan, Mulualem Tigabu, Futao Guo
With the increase in forest fire emissions, an increasing amount of nitrogen is released from combustibles and taken up by plant leaves in the form of PM2.5 smoke deposition. Concurrently, the stress from PM2.5 also disrupts the physiological processes of plants. This study aims to reveal the migration paths of N in combustibles in smoke and plants during forest fires and the stress response of plant
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Short-term recovery of post-fire vegetation is primarily limited by drought in Mediterranean forest ecosystems Fire Ecol. (IF 5.1) Pub Date : 2023-11-07 Miguel Ángel Blanco-Rodríguez, Aitor Ameztegui, Pere Gelabert, Marcos Rodrigues, Lluís Coll
Climate change is altering the fire regime and compromising the post-fire recovery of vegetation worldwide. To understand the factors influencing post-fire vegetation cover restoration, we calculated the recovery of vegetation in 200,000 hectares of western Mediterranean forest burned by 268 wildfires over a 27-year period (1988–2015). We used time series of the Tasseled Cap Transformation Brightness
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Fire frequency and severity mediate recruitment response of a threatened shrub following severe megafire Fire Ecol. (IF 5.1) Pub Date : 2023-11-02 Tom Le Breton, Laura Schweickle, Craig Dunne, Mitchell Lyons, Mark Ooi
Climate change is driving global fire regimes toward greater extremes, potentially threatening plant species that are adapted to historic fire regimes. Successful conservation of threatened plant species depends upon improving our understanding of how they respond to these changing fire regimes in fire prone regions. The 2019–2020 Australian megafires burnt at very high to extreme severity across an
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The effectiveness of past wildfire at limiting reburning is short-lived in a Mediterranean humid climate Fire Ecol. (IF 5.1) Pub Date : 2023-10-31 David A. Davim, Carlos G. Rossa, José M. C. Pereira, Nuno Guiomar, Paulo M. Fernandes
The study of wildfire interactions (i.e., spread limitation and reburns) is gaining traction as a means of describing the self-limiting process of fire spread in the landscape and has important management implications but has scarcely been attempted in Europe. We examined to what extent previously burned areas restricted the development of individual large wildfires (> 500 ha) in mainland Portugal
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Modeling fuel moisture dynamics under climate change in Spain’s forests Fire Ecol. (IF 5.1) Pub Date : 2023-10-27 Rodrigo Balaguer-Romano, Rubén Díaz-Sierra, Miquel De Cáceres, Jordi Voltas, Matthias M. Boer, Víctor Resco de Dios
Current assessments of the effects of climate change on future wildfire risk are based on either empirical approaches or fire weather indices. No study has yet used process-based models over national scales to understand how and where will increases in climate aridity affect the likelihood of fire activity through changes in the moisture content of live (LFMC) and of dead (DFMC) fuels. Here, we used
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Characterizing post-fire delayed tree mortality with remote sensing: sizing up the elephant in the room Fire Ecol. (IF 5.1) Pub Date : 2023-10-26 Matthew J. Reilly, Aaron Zuspan, Zhiqiang Yang
Despite recent advances in understanding the drivers of tree-level delayed mortality, we lack a method for mapping delayed mortality at landscape and regional scales. Consequently, the extent, magnitude, and effects of delayed mortality on post-fire landscape patterns of burn severity are unknown. We introduce a remote sensing approach for mapping delayed mortality based on post-fire decline in the
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Changing fire regimes in East and Southern Africa’s savanna-protected areas: opportunities and challenges for indigenous-led savanna burning emissions abatement schemes Fire Ecol. (IF 5.1) Pub Date : 2023-10-23 Abigail R. Croker, Jeremy Woods, Yiannis Kountouris
Late dry-season wildfires in sub-Saharan Africa’s savanna-protected areas are intensifying, increasing carbon emissions, and threatening ecosystem functioning. Addressing these challenges requires active local community engagement and support for wildfire policy. Savanna burning emissions abatement schemes first implemented in Northern Australia have been proposed as a community-based fire management
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Analyzing the impacts of node density and speed on routing protocol performance in firefighting applications Fire Ecol. (IF 5.1) Pub Date : 2023-10-19 Inam Ullah, Tariq Hussain, Aamir Khan, Iqtidar Ali, Farhad Ali, Chang Choi
Mobile ad hoc networks have piqued researchers’ interest in various applications, including forest fire detection. Because of the massive losses caused by this disaster, forest fires necessitate regular monitoring, good communication, and technology. As a result, disaster response and rescue applications are mobile ad hoc network’s primary applications. However, quality of service becomes a significant
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Operational fuel model map for Atlantic landscapes using ALS and Sentinel-2 images Fire Ecol. (IF 5.1) Pub Date : 2023-10-17 Ana Solares-Canal, Laura Alonso, Thais Rincón, Juan Picos, Domingo M. Molina-Terrén, Carmen Becerra, Julia Armesto
In the new era of large, high-intensity wildfire events, new fire prevention and extinction strategies are emerging. Software that simulates fire behavior can play a leading role. In order for these simulators to provide reliable results, updated fuel model maps are required. Previous studies have shown that remote sensing is a useful tool for obtaining information about vegetation structures and types
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Fire frequency effects on plant community characteristics in the Great Basin and Mojave deserts of North America Fire Ecol. (IF 5.1) Pub Date : 2023-10-17 Rebekah L. Stanton, Baylie C. Nusink, Kristina L. Cass, Tara B. B. Bishop, Brianna M. Woodbury, David N. Armond, Samuel B. St. Clair
Wildfire regimes are changing dramatically across North American deserts with the spread of invasive grasses. Invasive grass fire cycles in historically fire-resistant deserts are resulting in larger and more frequent wildfire. This study experimentally compared how single and repeat fires influence invasive grass-dominated plant fuels in the Great Basin, a semi-arid, cold desert, and the Mojave, a
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Ecosystem type and species’ traits help explain bird responses to spatial patterns of fire Fire Ecol. (IF 5.1) Pub Date : 2023-10-10 Frederick W. Rainsford, Katherine M. Giljohann, Andrew F. Bennett, Michael F. Clarke, Josephine MacHunter, Katharine Senior, Holly Sitters, Simon Watson, Luke T. Kelly
Understanding how temporal and spatial attributes of fire regimes, environmental conditions, and species’ traits interact to shape ecological communities will help improve biodiversity conservation in fire-affected areas. We compared the influence of time since the last fire at a site, and the area and diversity of post-fire successional vegetation surrounding a site (i.e., the “spatial context” of
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Inventory analysis of fire effects wrought by wind-driven megafires in relation to weather and pre-fire forest structure in the western Cascades Fire Ecol. (IF 5.1) Pub Date : 2023-10-10 Sebastian U. Busby, Angela M. Klock, Jeremy S. Fried
Six synchronous, wind-driven, high severity megafires burned over 300,000 hectares of mesic temperate forest in the western Cascades of NW Oregon and SW Washington states in early September 2020. While remote sensing data has been utilized to estimate fire severity across the fires, assessments of fire impacts informed by field observations are missing. We compiled field measurement data, pre- and
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Fires in the South American Chaco, from dry forests to wetlands: response to climate depends on land cover Fire Ecol. (IF 5.1) Pub Date : 2023-10-02 Rodrigo San Martín, Catherine Ottlé, Anna Sörensson
Wildfires represent an important element in the bio-geophysical cycles of various ecosystems across the globe and are particularly related to land transformation in tropical and subtropical regions. In this study, we analyzed the links between fires, land use (LU), and meteorological variables in the South American Chaco (1.1 million km2), a global deforestation hotspot and fire-exposed region that
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Modeling spatial patterns of longleaf pine needle dispersal using long-term data Fire Ecol. (IF 5.1) Pub Date : 2023-09-27 Suzanne H. Blaydes, Jeffery B. Cannon, Doug P. Aubrey
Predicting patterns of fire behavior and effects in frequent fire forests relies on an understanding of fine-scale spatial patterns of available fuels. Leaf litter is a significant canopy-derived fine fuel in fire-maintained forests. Litter dispersal is dependent on foliage production, stand structure, and wind direction, but the relative importance of these factors is unknown. Using a 10-year litterfall
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Estimating the economic value of carbon losses from wildfires using publicly available data sources: Eagle Creek Fire, Oregon 2017 Fire Ecol. (IF 5.1) Pub Date : 2023-09-25 Kristin Sweeney, Ruth Dittrich, Spencer Moffat, Chelsea Power, Jeffrey D. Kline
Wildfires are increasingly frequent in the Western US and impose a number of costs including from the instantaneous release of carbon when vegetation burns. Carbon released into the atmosphere aggravates climate change while carbon stored in vegetation helps to mitigate climate change. The need for climate change mitigation is becoming more and more urgent as achieving the Paris climate agreement target
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FireXnet: an explainable AI-based tailored deep learning model for wildfire detection on resource-constrained devices Fire Ecol. (IF 5.1) Pub Date : 2023-09-20 Khubab Ahmad, Muhammad Shahbaz Khan, Fawad Ahmed, Maha Driss, Wadii Boulila, Abdulwahab Alazeb, Mohammad Alsulami, Mohammed S. Alshehri, Yazeed Yasin Ghadi, Jawad Ahmad
Forests cover nearly one-third of the Earth’s land and are some of our most biodiverse ecosystems. Due to climate change, these essential habitats are endangered by increasing wildfires. Wildfires are not just a risk to the environment, but they also pose public health risks. Given these issues, there is an indispensable need for efficient and early detection methods. Conventional detection approaches
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Direct and indirect effects of fire on germination of shortleaf pine seeds Fire Ecol. (IF 5.1) Pub Date : 2023-09-19 Hope Fillingim, Benjamin O. Knapp, John M. Kabrick, Michael C. Stambaugh, Grant P. Elliott, Daniel C. Dey
Shortleaf pine is a fire-adapted tree species, and prescribed fire is commonly used to increase its regeneration success, improve wildlife habitat, and reach conservation objectives associated with open forest ecosystems. We studied direct effects of heat and smoke on shortleaf pine germination in a greenhouse study and effects of season of burning on the number of new germinants in a field study.
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Timing of fire during summer determines seed germination in Mediterranean Cistaceae Fire Ecol. (IF 5.1) Pub Date : 2023-09-18 Belén Luna, Paula Piñas-Bonilla, Gonzalo Zavala, Beatriz Pérez
Mediterranean-type ecosystems are fire-prone environments where species have evolved in the presence of seasonal summer conditions and frequent fires. In these environments, many species have seeds with impermeable hard coats that impose physical seed dormancy which prevents seed germination until it is broken by any factor such as fire or high summer temperatures. Most studies have usually focused
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Temporal and spatial patterns of seed dispersal of four shrubs in a Cistus-Erica shrubland from central Spain Fire Ecol. (IF 5.1) Pub Date : 2023-09-15 José M. Moreno, Eva Zuazua, Iván Torres, Antonio Parra, Clara Moreno-Fenoll
Mediterranean shrublands are composed of species that have different regeneration strategies after fire and soil seed bank types. However, differences over the years in seed dispersal temporal and spatial patterns of the various plants composing a community have been little investigated. Here, we studied the temporal and spatial patterns of seed dispersal in four shrubs of an old (> 40 years) shrubland
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Consequential lightning-caused wildfires and the “let burn” narrative Fire Ecol. (IF 5.1) Pub Date : 2023-08-29 Bradley M. Pietruszka, Jesse D. Young, Karen C. Short, Lise A. St. Denis, Matthew P. Thompson, David E. Calkin
Current guidance for implementation of United States federal wildland fire policy charges agencies with restoring and maintaining fire-adapted ecosystems while limiting the extent of wildfires that threaten life and property, weighed against the risks posed to firefighters. These ostensibly conflicting goals can make it difficult to clearly communicate specific response objectives of a given incident
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Camera traps link population-level activity patterns with wildfire smoke events for mammals in Eastern Washington State Fire Ecol. (IF 5.1) Pub Date : 2023-08-24 Jessalyn Ayars, Robert L. Emmet, Sarah B. Bassing, Olivia V. Sanderfoot, Sierra Raby, Alexandra Karambelas, Eric P. James, Ravan Ahmadov, Beth Gardner
Due to anthropogenic climate change and historic fire suppression, wildfire frequency and severity are increasing across the western United States. Whereas the indirect effects of fire on wildlife via habitat change are well studied, less is known about the impacts of wildfire smoke on animal health and behavior. In this study, we explore the effects of wildfire smoke on the behavior of eight medium-
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Correction: Federated recognition mechanism based on enhanced temporal-spatial learning using mobile edge sensors for firefighters Fire Ecol. (IF 5.1) Pub Date : 2023-08-14 Harun Jamil, Khan Murad Ali, Do‑Hyeun Kim
Correction: Fire Ecol 19, 44 (2023) https://doi.org/10.1186/s42408-023-00203-5 Following publication of this article (Jamil et al. 2023), the authors identified some errors in Eqs. 4, 6, and 9. The correct equations are given below:$$\mathrm{c}\left(\mathrm{t}\right)=\sum \left[\mathrm{e}\left(\mathrm{t}\right)*\mathrm{h}\left(\mathrm{t}\right)\right]$$(4)$${\mathrm{x}}_{(\mathrm{norm})}= \frac{(\mathrm{x}-\upmu
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Burn severity and proximity to undisturbed forest drive post-fire recovery in the tropical montane forests of northern Vietnam Fire Ecol. (IF 5.1) Pub Date : 2023-08-11 Pham T. Trang, Margaret E. Andrew, Neal J. Enright
In recent decades, fire has increasingly occurred in the tropical montane rainforests of northern Vietnam. However, there are few studies of the effects of fire on forest composition and recovery in this region, and understanding these effects is critical for effective forest fire management and conservation. Forest plant species richness, structure (density, basal area), and composition were quantified
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Fuel treatments in shrublands experiencing pinyon and juniper expansion result in trade-offs between desired vegetation and increased fire behavior Fire Ecol. (IF 5.1) Pub Date : 2023-08-07 Claire L. Williams, Lisa M. Ellsworth, Eva K. Strand, Matt C. Reeves, Scott E. Shaff, Karen C. Short, Jeanne C. Chambers, Beth A. Newingham, Claire Tortorelli
Native pinyon (Pinus spp.) and juniper (Juniperus spp.) trees are expanding into shrubland communities across the Western United States. These trees often outcompete with native sagebrush (Artemisia spp.) associated species, resulting in increased canopy fuels and reduced surface fuels. Woodland expansion often results in longer fire return intervals with potential for high severity crown fire. Fuel
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System-level feedbacks of active fire regimes in large landscapes Fire Ecol. (IF 5.1) Pub Date : 2023-07-31 Nicholas A. Povak, Paul F. Hessburg, R. Brion Salter, Robert W. Gray, Susan J. Prichard
Climate is a main driver of fire regimes, but recurrent fires provide stabilizing feedbacks at several spatial scales that can limit fire spread and severity—potentially contributing to a form of self-regulation. Evaluating the strength of these feedbacks in wildland systems is difficult given the spatial and temporal scales of observation required. Here, we used the REBURN model to directly examine
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Federated recognition mechanism based on enhanced temporal-spatial learning using mobile edge sensors for firefighters Fire Ecol. (IF 5.1) Pub Date : 2023-07-27 Harun Jamil, Khan Murad Ali, Do-Hyeun Kim
Interest in Human Action Recognition (HAR), which encompasses both household and industrial settings, is growing. HAR describes a computer system’s capacity to accurately recognize and evaluate human activities and behaviors, akin to what humans call perception. Real-time federated activity identification architecture is suggested in this work to monitor smartphone user behavior. The main aim is to
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Climate influences on future fire severity: a synthesis of climate-fire interactions and impacts on fire regimes, high-severity fire, and forests in the western United States Fire Ecol. (IF 5.1) Pub Date : 2023-07-24 Tzeidle N. Wasserman, Stephanie E. Mueller
Increases in fire activity and changes in fire regimes have been documented in recent decades across the western United States. Climate change is expected to continue to exacerbate impacts to forested ecosystems by increasing the frequency, size, and severity of wildfires across the western United States (US). Warming temperatures and shifting precipitation patterns are altering western landscapes
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Contribution of remote sensing to wildfire trend and dynamic analysis in two of Ghana’s ecological zones: Guinea-savanna and Forest-savanna mosaic Fire Ecol. (IF 5.1) Pub Date : 2023-07-17 Kueshi Sémanou Dahan, Raymond Abudu Kasei, Rikiatu Husseini
Two of Ghana’s ecological zones—Guinea-savanna zone (GSZ) and Forest-savanna mosaic zone (FSZ)—are practically homologous in terms of structure and floristic composition, with some differences. The various sub-ecosystems that make up these areas are being depleted and losing their natural values due to various threats. There is little understanding about the fire trends in these areas due to a lack