Modeling Relationships among 217 Fires Using Remote Sensing of Burn Severity in Southern Pine Forests

Malone, Sparkle L.; Kobziar, Leda N.; Staudhammer, Christina L.; Abd-Elrahman, Amr

doi:10.3390/rs3092005

Cited by 24 publications

(17 citation statements)

References 33 publications

(54 reference statements)

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“…The Osceola National Forest in North Central Florida (93, 000 ha) has a frequent (2-5 years) PB programme with an approximate annual target of 14 % of its pine forest. For the 1998-2008 period, analysis of Landsat imagery showed PB reduced the likelihood of high burn severity up to 5 years posttreatment [54].…”

Section: Landscape-to Regional-scale Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Empirical Support for the Use of Prescribed Burning as a Fuel Treatment

Fernandes

2015

Curr Forestry Rep

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Prescribed burning as a fuel treatment seeks to moderate wildfire impacts and decreases the areal extent of wildfires by increasing the effectiveness of fire suppression. Assessment of prescribed burning effectiveness is frequently anecdotal or based on simulation. This paper examines recent observational evidence of prescribed fire effectiveness. The spread rate and intensity of experimental fires in distinct fuel types have been shown to increase with time since treatment (fuel age) following fuel structure recovery. Prescribed fire constrains the size and especially the severity of individual fires, even under extremely severe weather conditions. At larger spatial and temporal scales of analysis, the effect of fuel age on unplanned fire severity is also evident, whether it comes from wildfires entering treated areas or from wildfires in fuel-reduced areas resulting from earlier wildfire occurrences. The persistence of these effects is variable, depending on vegetation type and productivity. The long-term reduction in wildfire area brought about by prescribed fire can be difficult to ascertain. Substantial effort (annual treatment rates >5 % of the landscape) has been shown to effectively control the extent of wildfires in forests, with 3-4 units of prescribed burning needed to reduce wildfire by one unit. Future studies should consider the decrease in area burned by high-severity fire as a more meaningful and objective measure of prescribed fire effectiveness than the decrease in wildfire area and should strive to document fire behaviour in treated versus untreated areas during wildfires.

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Section: Landscape-to Regional-scale Studiesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Empirical Support for the Use of Prescribed Burning as a Fuel Treatment

Fernandes

2015

Curr Forestry Rep

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“…Logistic regression has demonstrated to be a powerful method to assess the performance of spectral indices with nominal or ordinal response data [69][70][71]. The ordinal regression in this study used the fire severity field classes as dependent variable and the spectral index values as independent variables.…”

Section: Logistic Regression Analysismentioning

confidence: 99%

Evaluating Spectral Indices for Assessing Fire Severity in Chaparral Ecosystems (Southern California) Using MODIS/ASTER (MASTER) Airborne Simulator Data

2011

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Abstract:Wildland fires are a yearly recurring phenomenon in many terrestrial ecosystems. Accurate fire severity estimates are of paramount importance for modeling fire-induced trace gas emissions and rehabilitating post-fire landscapes. We used high spatial and high spectral resolution MODIS/ASTER (MASTER) airborne simulator data acquired over four 2007 southern California burns to evaluate the effectiveness of 19 different spectral indices, including the widely used Normalized Burn Ratio (NBR), for assessing fire severity in southern California chaparral. Ordinal logistic regression was used to assess the goodness-of-fit between the spectral index values and ordinal field data of severity. The NBR and three indices in which the NBR is enhanced with surface temperature or emissivity data revealed the best performance. Our findings support the operational use of the NBR in chaparral ecosystems by Burned Area Emergency Rehabilitation (BAER) projects, and demonstrate the potential of combining optical and thermal data for assessing fire severity. Additional testing in more burns, other ecoregions and different vegetation types is required to fully understand how (thermally enhanced) spectral indices relate to fire severity.

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“…[8][9][10][11]). However, assessments of trends in prescribed burning effectiveness across the southern U.S. are surprisingly limited to a few mostly case-based studies.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Perspectives on Trends, Effectiveness, and Impediments to Prescribed Burning in the Southern U.S.

Kobziar

Godwin

Taylor³

et al. 2015

Forests

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Abstract:The southern region of the U.S. uses prescribed fire as a management tool on more of its burnable land than anywhere in the U.S., with ecosystem restoration, wildlife habitat enhancement, and reduction of hazardous fuel loads as typical goals. Although the region performs more than 50,000 prescribed fire treatments each year, evaluation of their effects on wildfire suppression resources or behavior/effects is limited. To better understand trends in the use and effectiveness of prescribed fire, we conducted a region-wide survey of 523 fire use practitioners, working on both public and private lands. A 1-2 year prescribed fire interval was consistently viewed as effective in decreasing wildfire ignitions, behavior, and severity, as well as reducing suppression resources needed where wildfire occurred. Yet fewer than 15% of practitioners viewed burn intervals of 3-4 years as effective in reducing ignitions, underscoring the importance of high-frequency burning in vegetation communities where fuel recovery is rapid. Public lands managers identified limited budget and staffing as major institutional impediments to prescribed fire, in contrast to private individuals, more of whom chose liability as a key challenge. Differences in responses across ownership type, state, and vegetation type call for a broader perspective on how fire managers in the southern U.S. view prescribed fire. OPEN ACCESSForests 2015, 6 562

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Modeling Relationships among 217 Fires Using Remote Sensing of Burn Severity in Southern Pine Forests

Cited by 24 publications

References 33 publications

Empirical Support for the Use of Prescribed Burning as a Fuel Treatment

Empirical Support for the Use of Prescribed Burning as a Fuel Treatment

Evaluating Spectral Indices for Assessing Fire Severity in Chaparral Ecosystems (Southern California) Using MODIS/ASTER (MASTER) Airborne Simulator Data

Perspectives on Trends, Effectiveness, and Impediments to Prescribed Burning in the Southern U.S.

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