Fire Ecology of Rocky Mountain Forests

Hood, Sharon M.; Harvey, Brian; Fornwalt, Paula J.; Naficy, Cameron E.; Hansen, Winslow D.; Davis, Kimberley T.; Battaglia, Mike A.; Stevens‐Rumann, Camille S.; Saab, Victoria A.

doi:10.1007/978-3-030-73267-7_8

Cited by 8 publications

(16 citation statements)

References 226 publications

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“…Notably, Rocky Mountain P. contorta (spp. latifolia ) exhibits cone serotiny, which facilitates recruitment in areas burned at high severity ( 35 ).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Short-term exposure to extreme conditions [e.g., high soil surface temperatures ( 64 )] can also cause seedling mortality. Additionally, the level of serotiny in P. contorta stands strongly impacts forest development after high severity fire ( 24 , 35 ). We stress that such fine-scale patterns and processes are essential to regeneration dynamics and should be explicitly considered in developing site-specific management strategies ( 33 , 40 ).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The interior subspecies of P. contorta (spp. latifolia ) can be serotinous and regenerate prolifically following high-severity fire, although levels of serotiny vary widely among individuals and populations ( 35 ). We used these field data to model postfire recruitment probability for each species individually and for all species combined as a function of biophysical predictors representing seed availability, fire severity, 30-y mean climate, and postfire climate ( SI Appendix , Table S1 ).…”

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confidence: 99%

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Reduced fire severity offers near-term buffer to climate-driven declines in conifer resilience across the western United States

Davis

Robles

Kemp

et al. 2023

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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Increasing fire severity and warmer, drier postfire conditions are making forests in the western United States (West) vulnerable to ecological transformation. Yet, the relative importance of and interactions between these drivers of forest change remain unresolved, particularly over upcoming decades. Here, we assess how the interactive impacts of changing climate and wildfire activity influenced conifer regeneration after 334 wildfires, using a dataset of postfire conifer regeneration from 10,230 field plots. Our findings highlight declining regeneration capacity across the West over the past four decades for the eight dominant conifer species studied. Postfire regeneration is sensitive to high-severity fire, which limits seed availability, and postfire climate, which influences seedling establishment. In the near-term, projected differences in recruitment probability between low- and high-severity fire scenarios were larger than projected climate change impacts for most species, suggesting that reductions in fire severity, and resultant impacts on seed availability, could partially offset expected climate-driven declines in postfire regeneration. Across 40 to 42% of the study area, we project postfire conifer regeneration to be likely following low-severity but not high-severity fire under future climate scenarios (2031 to 2050). However, increasingly warm, dry climate conditions are projected to eventually outweigh the influence of fire severity and seed availability. The percent of the study area considered unlikely to experience conifer regeneration, regardless of fire severity, increased from 5% in 1981 to 2000 to 26 to 31% by mid-century, highlighting a limited time window over which management actions that reduce fire severity may effectively support postfire conifer regeneration.

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“…Notably, Rocky Mountain P. contorta (spp. latifolia ) exhibits cone serotiny, which facilitates recruitment in areas burned at high severity ( 35 ).…”

Section: Resultsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

mentioning

confidence: 99%

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Reduced fire severity offers near-term buffer to climate-driven declines in conifer resilience across the western United States

Davis

Robles

Kemp

et al. 2023

Proc. Natl. Acad. Sci. U.S.A.

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“…Our study region is the forested ecoregions of the Northwest United States (Wyoming, Montana, Idaho, Washington, Oregon, and northern California), delineated using EPA Level III Ecoregions (Commission for Environmental Cooperation, 1997) (Figure 1). Climate, topography and forest types vary widely across the study region, as do fire activity and fire‐adapted traits of dominant tree species (Hood et al, 2021; Reilly et al, 2021; Stevens et al, 2020). Historical fire regimes range from frequent, low‐severity fire in warmer and drier parts of the region to infrequent, high‐severity fire in cooler and wetter parts of the region (Hood et al, 2021; Reilly et al, 2021).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Climate, topography and forest types vary widely across the study region, as do fire activity and fire‐adapted traits of dominant tree species (Hood et al, 2021; Reilly et al, 2021; Stevens et al, 2020). Historical fire regimes range from frequent, low‐severity fire in warmer and drier parts of the region to infrequent, high‐severity fire in cooler and wetter parts of the region (Hood et al, 2021; Reilly et al, 2021). We used LANDFIRE land cover data to classify forested areas and fire regime groups (FRGs) throughout the study region (Rollins, 2009).…”

Section: Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Consistent spatial scaling of high‐severity wildfire can inform expected future patterns of burn severity

et al. 2023

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Increasing wildfire activity in forests worldwide has driven urgency in understanding current and future fire regimes. Spatial patterns of area burned at high severity strongly shape forest resilience and constitute a key dimension of fire regimes, yet remain difficult to predict. To characterize the range of burn severity patterns expected within contemporary fire regimes, we quantified scaling relationships relating fire size to patterns of burn severity. Using 1615 fires occurring across the Northwest United States between 1985 and 2020, we evaluated scaling relationships within fire regimes and tested whether relationships vary across space and time. Patterns of high‐severity fire demonstrate consistent scaling behaviour; as fire size increases, high‐severity patches consistently increase in size and homogeneity. Scaling relationships did not differ substantially across space or time at the scales considered here, suggesting that as fire‐size distributions potentially shift, stationarity in patch‐size scaling can be used to infer future patterns of burn severity.

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Long‐term efficacy of fuel reduction and restoration treatments in Northern Rockies dry forests

Hood,

Crotteau,

Cleveland

2024

Ecological Applications

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Fuel and restoration treatments seeking to mitigate the likelihood of uncharacteristic high‐severity wildfires in forests with historically frequent, low‐severity fire regimes are increasingly common, but long‐term treatment effects on fuels, aboveground carbon, plant community structure, ecosystem resilience, and other ecosystem attributes are understudied. We present 20‐year responses to thinning and prescribed burning treatments commonly used in dry, low‐elevation forests of the western United States from a long‐term study site in the Northern Rockies that is part of the National Fire and Fire Surrogate Study. We provide a comprehensive synthesis of short‐term (<4 years) and mid‐term (<14 years) results from previous findings. We then place these results in the context of a mountain pine beetle (MPB; Dendroctonus ponderosae) outbreak that impacted the site 5–10 years post‐treatment and describe 20‐year responses to assess the longevity of restoration and fuel reduction treatments in light of the MPB outbreak. Thinning treatments had persistently lower forest density and higher tree growth, but effects were more pronounced when thinning was combined with prescribed fire. The thinning+prescribed fire treatment had the additional benefit of maintaining the highest proportion of ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa) for overstory and regeneration. No differences in understory native plant cover and richness or exotic species cover remained after 20 years, but exotic species richness, while low relative to native species, was still higher in the thinning+prescribed fire treatment than the control. Aboveground live carbon stocks in thinning treatments recovered to near control and prescribed fire treatment levels by 20 years. The prescribed fire treatment and control had higher fuel loads than thinning treatments due to interactions with the MPB outbreak. The MPB‐induced changes to forest structure and fuels increased the fire hazard 20 years post‐treatment in the control and prescribed fire treatment. Should a wildfire occur now, the thinning+prescribed fire treatment would likely have the lowest intensity fire and highest tree survival and stable carbon stocks. Our findings show broad support that thinning and prescribed fire increase ponderosa pine forest resilience to both wildfire and bark beetles for up to 20 years, but efficacy is waning and additional fuel treatments are needed to maintain resilience.

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Fire Ecology of Rocky Mountain Forests

Cited by 8 publications

References 226 publications

Reduced fire severity offers near-term buffer to climate-driven declines in conifer resilience across the western United States

Reduced fire severity offers near-term buffer to climate-driven declines in conifer resilience across the western United States

Consistent spatial scaling of high‐severity wildfire can inform expected future patterns of burn severity

Long‐term efficacy of fuel reduction and restoration treatments in Northern Rockies dry forests

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