Fuel fragmentation and fire size distributions in managed and unmanaged boreal forests in the province of Saskatchewan, Canada

Lehsten, Veiko; Groot, William de; Sallaba, Florian

doi:10.1016/j.foreco.2016.06.014

Cited by 5 publications

(5 citation statements)

References 32 publications

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“…Lack of inclusion of these factors limits the predictive ability of our models, although the five landscape water variables considered here were predictive and largely supported our hypothesized relationships. Of note is the effect of humans, which is pervasive (if not intense) in the boreal plains portion of our study area [45]. Although large boreal wildfires are virtually uncontrollable and burn more or less "freely" once they escape initial attack, humans may have a subtle yet considerable influence on wildfire activity through direct (igniting or extinguishing fires) or indirect (land-use change) means [46].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 93%

Effects of Lakes on Wildfire Activity in the Boreal Forests of Saskatchewan, Canada

Nielsen

DeLancey

Reinhardt

et al. 2016

Forests

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Large lakes can act as firebreaks resulting in distinct patterns in the forest mosaic. Although this is well acknowledged, much less is known about how wildfire is affected by different landscape measures of water and their interactions. Here we examine how these factors relate to historic patterns of wildfire over a 35-year period (1980-2014) for the boreal forest of Saskatchewan, Canada. This includes the amount of water in different-sized neighborhoods, the presence of islands, and the direction, distance, and shape of nearest lake of different sizes. All individual factors affected wildfire presence, with lake sizes ≥5000 ha and amount of water within a 1000-ha surrounding area the most supported spatial scales. Overall, wildfires were two-times less likely on islands, more likely further from lakes that were circular in shape, and in areas with less surrounding water. Interactive effects were common, including the effect of direction to lake as a function of distance from lakeshore and amount of surrounding water. Our results point to a strong, but complex, bottom-up control of local wildfire activity based on the configuration of natural firebreaks. In fact, fire rotation periods predicted for one area varied more than 15-fold (<47 to >700 years) depending on local patterns in lakes. Old-growth forests within this fire-prone ecosystem are therefore likely to depend on the surrounding configuration of larger lakes.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 93%

Effects of Lakes on Wildfire Activity in the Boreal Forests of Saskatchewan, Canada

Nielsen

DeLancey

Reinhardt

et al. 2016

Forests

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“…Model-based predictions suggest that the severity of fire regimes will increase in the future in response to global warming (Turetsky et al 2011, De Groot et al 2013. Some scenarios even suggest that frequencies of large fires may increase sufficiently to push current fire suppression capacity beyond a tipping point ( Groot et al 2013, Lehsten et al 2016). Such changes could threaten human safety, impair the viability of some economic sectors (Simms 2016), and trigger substantial changes in vegetation structure and composition (Flannigan et al 2005, Remy et al 2016.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Different regional climatic drivers of Holocene large wildfires in boreal forests of northeastern America

Remy

Hély

Blarquez

et al. 2017

Environ. Res. Lett.

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Global warming could increase climatic instability and large wildfire activity in circumboreal regions, potentially impairing both ecosystem functioning and human health. However, links between large wildfire events and climatic and/or meteorological conditions are still poorly understood, partly because few studies have covered a wide range of past climate-fire interactions. We compared palaeofire and simulated climatic data over the last 7000 years to assess causes of large wildfire events in three coniferous boreal forest regions in north-eastern Canada. These regions span an east-west cline, from a hilly region influenced by the Atlantic Ocean currently dominated by Picea mariana and Abies balsamea to a flatter continental region dominated by Picea mariana and Pinus banksiana. The largest wildfires occurred across the entire study zone between 3000 and 1000 cal. BP. In western and central continental regions these events were triggered by increases in both the fire-season length and summer/spring temperatures, while in the eastern region close to the ocean they were likely responses to hydrological (precipitation/ evapotranspiration) variability. The impact of climatic drivers on fire size varied spatially across the study zone, confirming that regional climate dynamics could modulate effects of global climate change on wildfire regimes.

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“…We further adapted the detailed physical model of belowground fire smouldering of He et al (2009) and simplified the set of rules governing fire spread both downwards and vertically. Aboveground fire spread simplifies the more detailed description of global fire models like the SPITFIRE model (Thonicke et al 2010;Spessa et al 2013;Lehsten et al 2016;Hantson et al 2017), which in turn is based on Rothermel's physical model of fire spread (Rothermel 1972;Rothermel and Rinehart 1983).…”

Section: Design Concepts Basic Principlesmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The experiment simulated 1815 different parameter combinations, which were each replicated 30 times (54 450 simulation runs). Comparisons between observed and simulated burnt area maps were performed using Cohen's kappa statistic (Cohen 1960), following the procedure described in Lehsten et al (2016), who used the kappa statistic to compare simulated v. observed vegetation maps. The simulated results were sorted based on the highest kappa score.…”

Section: Parameter Optimisationmentioning

confidence: 99%

PeatFire: an agent-based model to simulate fire ignition and spreading in a tropical peatland ecosystem

Widyastuti

Imron

Pradopo

et al. 2021

Int. J. Wildland Fire

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The increased frequency and spread of tropical peat fires over the last two decades have attracted global attention because they cause significant environmental and health impacts at local to global scales. To understand the relative importance of key factors controlling tropical peatland burning events, we developed PeatFire, an agent-based model simulating the interaction between human-induced ignitions, fire and peat characteristics. The model describes (1) above- and belowground fires, which spread independently but interact with each other; (2) above- and belowground biomass; and (3) the watertable determining peat dryness and susceptibility to fire. We applied PeatFire to a region in South Sumatra that has experienced profound natural rainforest loss due to peat fires. Sensitivity analysis of the model suggests that fire sizes depend mostly on watertable depth, peat-dry-index and number of dry days before ignition. Using pattern-oriented modelling, these factors were parameterised so that the model output matches spatiotemporal fire patterns observed in the study region in 2015. Our results emphasise the risk of a sudden shift from moderate fire occurrence to complete burning and highlight the importance of local context to peatland regulation, which should consider both biophysical and socioeconomic factors and strategies for peatland fire management.

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Fuel fragmentation and fire size distributions in managed and unmanaged boreal forests in the province of Saskatchewan, Canada

Cited by 5 publications

References 32 publications

Effects of Lakes on Wildfire Activity in the Boreal Forests of Saskatchewan, Canada

Effects of Lakes on Wildfire Activity in the Boreal Forests of Saskatchewan, Canada

Different regional climatic drivers of Holocene large wildfires in boreal forests of northeastern America

PeatFire: an agent-based model to simulate fire ignition and spreading in a tropical peatland ecosystem

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