Climate change presents increased potential for very large fires in the contiguous United States

Barbero, Renaud; Abatzoglou, John T.; Larkin, Narasimhan K.; Kolden, Crystal A.; Stocks, B. J.

doi:10.1071/wf15083

Cited by 373 publications

(281 citation statements)

References 46 publications

(48 reference statements)

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“…The size threshold for classifying fires as VLFs is similarly variable from > 1000 ha [44] to > 20,234 ha [23], or ranging from 500 ha to 20,000 ha [45,46]. from ≥ 100 ha (e.g., [30][31][32][33][34][35][36][37]) to ≥ 1,000 ha [38].…”

Section: Large Very Large and Extremely Large Firesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Defining Extreme Wildfire Events: Difficulties, Challenges, and Impacts

Tedim

Leone

Amraoui

et al. 2018

Fire

341

220

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Every year worldwide some extraordinary wildfires occur, overwhelming suppression capabilities, causing substantial damages, and often resulting in fatalities. Given their increasing frequency, there is a debate about how to address these wildfires with significant social impacts, but there is no agreement upon terminology to describe them. The concept of extreme wildfire event (EWE) has emerged to bring some coherence on this kind of events. It is increasingly used, often as a synonym of other terms related to wildfires of high intensity and size, but its definition remains elusive. The goal of this paper is to go beyond drawing on distinct disciplinary perspectives to develop a holistic view of EWE as a social-ecological phenomenon. Based on literature review and using a transdisciplinary approach, this paper proposes a definition of EWE as a process and an outcome. Considering the lack of a consistent "scale of gravity" to leverage extreme wildfire events such as in natural hazards (e.g., tornados, hurricanes and earthquakes) we present a proposal of wildfire classification with seven categories based on measurable fire spread and behavior parameters and suppression difficulty. The categories 5 to 7 are labeled as EWE.

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Section: Large Very Large and Extremely Large Firesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Defining Extreme Wildfire Events: Difficulties, Challenges, and Impacts

Tedim

Leone

Amraoui

et al. 2018

Fire

341

220

View full text Add to dashboard Cite

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“…Projections of future wildfire area burned in the state of California range from increases of 36-74% by the year 2085, and >100% for forests in northern California (Westerling et al, 2011). These changes are expected to lead to positive feedbacks among climate, fire and fire-mediated C cycling that threaten to exacerbate climate warming (Liu et al, 2014;Barbero et al, 2015;Millar and Stephenson, 2015), which in turn increases drought stress in trees, and, consequently, increased fire severity (Van Mantgem et al, 2013).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Quantifying Changes in Total and Pyrogenic Carbon Stocks Across Fire Severity Gradients Using Active Wildfire Incidents

et al. 2018

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Positive feedbacks between wildfire emissions and climate are expected to increase in strength in the future; however, fires not only release carbon (C) from terrestrial to atmospheric pools, they also produce pyrogenic C (PyC) which contributes to longer-term C stability. Our objective was to quantify wildfire impacts on total C and PyC stocks in California mixed-conifer forest, and to investigate patterns in C and PyC stocks and changes across gradients of fire severity, using metrics derived from remote sensing and field observations. Our unique study accessed active wildfires to establish and measure plots within days before and after fire, prior to substantial erosion. We measured pre-and post-fire aboveground forest structure and woody fuels to calculate aboveground biomass, C and PyC, and collected forest floor and 0-5 cm mineral soil samples. Immediate tree mortality increased with severity, but overstory C loss was minimal and limited primarily to foliage. Fire released 85% of understory and herbaceous C (comprising <1.0% of total ecosystem C). The greatest C losses occurred from downed wood and forest floor pools (19.3 ± 5.1 Mg ha −1 and 25.9 ± 3.2 Mg ha −1 , respectively). Tree bark and downed wood contributed the greatest PyC gains (1.5 ± 0.3 Mg ha −1 and 1.9 ± 0.8 Mg ha −1 , respectively), and PyC in tree bark showed non-significant positive trends with increasing severity. Overall PyC losses of 1.9 ± 0.3 Mg ha −1 and 0.5 ± 0

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“…Recent evidence from North America of increased fire activity (intensity, frequency, and total area burned) due to anthropogenic climate change [1][2][3] underscores the need to improve our understanding of variable fire intensity impacts on ecosystem productivity at local to regional scales. Current assessments of the ecological impacts of fires, termed burn severity, investigate the degree to which an ecosystem has changed due to a fire [4] and typically encompass both vegetation and soil effects [5].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Spectral Indices Accurately Quantify Changes in Seedling Physiology Following Fire: Towards Mechanistic Assessments of Post-Fire Carbon Cycling

et al. 2016

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Fire activity, in terms of intensity, frequency, and total area burned, is expected to increase with a changing climate. A challenge for landscape-level assessment of fire effects, often termed burn severity, is that current remote sensing assessments provide very little information regarding tree/vegetation physiological performance and recovery, limiting our understanding of fire effects on ecosystem services such as carbon storage/cycling. In this paper, we evaluated whether spectral indices common in vegetation stress and burn severity assessments could accurately quantify post-fire physiological performance (indicated by net photosynthesis and crown scorch) of two seedling species, Larix occidentalis and Pinus contorta. Seedlings were subjected to increasing fire radiative energy density (FRED) doses through a series of controlled laboratory surface fires. Mortality, physiology, and spectral reflectance were assessed for a month following the fires, and then again at one year post-fire. The differenced Normalized Difference Vegetation Index (dNDVI) spectral index outperformed other spectral indices used for vegetation stress and burn severity characterization in regard to leaf net photosynthesis quantification, indicating that landscape-level quantification of tree physiology may be possible. Additionally, the survival of the majority of seedlings in the low and moderate FRED doses indicates that fire-induced mortality is more complex than the currently accepted binary scenario, where trees survive with no impacts below a certain temperature and duration threshold, and mortality occurs above the threshold.

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Climate change presents increased potential for very large fires in the contiguous United States

Cited by 373 publications

References 46 publications

Defining Extreme Wildfire Events: Difficulties, Challenges, and Impacts

Defining Extreme Wildfire Events: Difficulties, Challenges, and Impacts

Quantifying Changes in Total and Pyrogenic Carbon Stocks Across Fire Severity Gradients Using Active Wildfire Incidents

Spectral Indices Accurately Quantify Changes in Seedling Physiology Following Fire: Towards Mechanistic Assessments of Post-Fire Carbon Cycling

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