Fire in Protected Areas - the Effect of Protection and Importance of Fire Management

Pereira, Paulo; Mierauskas, Pranas; Úbeda, Xavier; Mataix‐Solera, Jorge; Cerdà, Artemi

doi:10.5755/j01.erem.59.1.856

Cited by 27 publications

(22 citation statements)

References 49 publications

(39 reference statements)

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“…In contrast, low‐severity fires do not have negative implications on soil properties (Fernandez et al , ; Pereira et al , 2015d), and vegetation recuperates very quickly. It has been extensively highlighted in the literature that low‐severity fires do not have negative impacts on ecosystems and in some cases can be considered beneficial (Pereira et al , 2012c; Scharenbroch et al , ; Fernandes et al , ; Ryan et al , ). The studied fire was one of these cases.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Short‐Term Vegetation Recovery after a Grassland Fire in Lithuania: The Effects of Fire Severity, Slope Position and Aspect

et al. 2016

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In Lithuania, fire is frequently used by farmers as a tool to remove dry grass, improve soil nutrient status and help soil tilling. However, little is known about the ecological impacts of these fires, including vegetation recovery. The objective of this work is to study the impacts of a spring grassland fire on vegetation recuperation on an east‐facing (A) and a west‐facing slope (B), considering fire severity and slope position, 10, 17, 31 and 46 days after the fire. Because of their effects on fire behaviour, aspect, steepness and heterogeneity of topography favoured higher fire severity on slope B than on slope A. Three different slope positions were identified on slope A – flat top, middle slope and flat bottom – and five on slope B – flat top, middle slope, flat middle slope, slope bottom slope and flat bottom. Fire severity was high in top slope positions. The recovery of vegetation was very fast. By the end of the study, vegetation covered nearly 100% of the study area, although fire severity, aspect and slope characteristics had implications on vegetation recovery. Plant cover recovered quickly on slope A. Ten and 17 days after the fire, plant cover was high in the bottom positions, where fire severity was relatively low. The major vegetation recuperation was observed between 17 and 31 days after the fire, in response to high rainfall. Copyright © 2016 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Short‐Term Vegetation Recovery after a Grassland Fire in Lithuania: The Effects of Fire Severity, Slope Position and Aspect

et al. 2016

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“…However, fires are often perceived as socially and economically unwanted disturbances. Driven by safety policies and regulations, active suppression of fires in PAs has led to the reduction of fire's ecological benefits [11,12]. In an era of rapid land-use and climate change, reconciling the management of PAs with the reality of wildfire is a major challenge [13,14].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Contrasting human influences and macro-environmental factors on fire activity inside and outside protected areas of North America

Mansuy

Miller

Parisien

et al. 2019

Environ. Res. Lett.

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Human activities threaten the effectiveness of protected areas (PAs) in achieving their conservation goals across the globe. In this study, we contrast the influence of human and macro-environmental factors driving fire activity inside and outside PAs. Using area burned between 1984 and 2014 for 11 ecoregions in Canada and the United States, we built and compared statistical models of fire likelihood using the MaxEnt software and a set of 11 key anthropogenic, climatic, and physical variables. Overall, the full model (i.e. including all variables) performed better (adjusted area under the curve ranging from 0.71 to 0.95 for individual ecoregions) than the model that excluded anthropogenic variables. Both model types (with and without anthropogenic variables) generally performed better inside than outside the PAs. Climatic variables were usually of foremost importance in explaining fire activity inside and outside PAs, with anthropogenic variables being the second most important predictors, even inside PAs. While the individual contributions of anthropogenic variables indicate that fire activity decreased as of function of increasing human footprint, the anthropogenic effects were often substantially greater than those of physical features and were comparable to or even greater than climatic effects in some densely developed ecoregions, both outside and within PAs (e.g. Mediterranean California, Eastern Temperate Forest, and Tropical Wet Forests). Together, these results show the pervasive impact of humans on fire regimes inside PAs, as well as outside PAs. Given the increasing attractiveness of PAs, the implications for adaptive fire management beyond the concept of naturalness in the PAs are discussed. Our assessment of human-altered fire activity could serve as an indicator of human pressure in PAs; however, we suggest that further analysis is needed to understand specific interactions among fire, human pressures, and the environmental conditions at the scale of PAs. Significance statementProtected areas (PAs) are critical for maintaining habitat integrity, species diversity, and ecosystem health. Untangling the biophysical and anthropogenic drivers of fire regimes within PAs is crucial for developing effective strategies to preserve and manage biodiversity and ecosystem functions. Our study reveals the large influence of humans on fire activity in and outside of PAs. Even in PAs with minimal human activity, human influence on fire is pervasive and reduces fire activity. Our assessment of human-altered fire activity could be used as an indicator to measure the effectiveness of PAs in meeting conservation goals.

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“…In Lithuania, fire has been used as a traditional tool for landscape management by rural populations in the countryside and inside the protected areas. However, the first legal prescribed fire in a protected area was only authorized recently (Pereira et al, ). Despite the approval of prescribed fire, this practice is not fully adopted, and very often, farmers illegally burn their fields resulting in property loss because fire frequently escapes from control (Mierauskas, ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Stakeholders' Perceptions about Fire Impacts on Lithuanian Protected Areas

2014

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The aim of this work is to study Lithuanian stakeholders' perceptions of fire impacts in protected areas. For this study, the stakeholders consisted of foresters, ecologists and farmers. A clear understanding of the opinions of stakeholders about fire effects on environmental, social and economic aspects of Lithuanian protected areas will allow an assessment of the stakeholders' reaction to fire policy, including government measures towards fire prevention, suppression and application of prescribed fire to landscape management. The results showed that stakeholders in general think that fire is not a threat to Lithuania and to the ecological processes in the protected areas. However, they agree that fires have negative impacts on soil properties and fertility but are not to an irremediable or irrecoverable extent. Stakeholders disagree that fire has positive consequences for agricultural and cattle activities but agreed that vegetation recovers quickly. They do not see fire as a social and economic problem, do not agree that prescribed fire could be used to landscape management, and believe that mechanical thinning is a better management tool than prescribed fire. Stakeholders agree that fire does not have negative impacts on the biodiversity. These opinions depended on the age group of the respondent but especially on the respondent's professional occupation.

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Fire in Protected Areas - the Effect of Protection and Importance of Fire Management

Cited by 27 publications

References 49 publications

Short‐Term Vegetation Recovery after a Grassland Fire in Lithuania: The Effects of Fire Severity, Slope Position and Aspect

Short‐Term Vegetation Recovery after a Grassland Fire in Lithuania: The Effects of Fire Severity, Slope Position and Aspect

Contrasting human influences and macro-environmental factors on fire activity inside and outside protected areas of North America

Stakeholders' Perceptions about Fire Impacts on Lithuanian Protected Areas

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