Robust projections of future fire probability for the conterminous United States

Gao, Peng; Terando, Adam; Kupfer, John A.; Varner, J. Morgan; Stambaugh, Michael C.; Lei, Ting; Hiers, J. Kevin

doi:10.1016/j.scitotenv.2021.147872

Cited by 42 publications

(36 citation statements)

References 60 publications

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“…The main finding of our study is consistent with the results of previous studies, such as Gergel et al, (2017) [53], that predicted fire potential in flammability-limited forested systems is likely to increase because of a decrease in the spring mountain snowpack, summer soil moisture, and fuel moisture across the western mountain ranges in the United States [53]. Additionally, Gao et al, (2021) projected that potential annual fire occurrence probabilities will increase across the CONUS [6]. However, there are some differences between results, particularly for spatial changes in future fire rates.…”

Section: Uncertainties and Limitationssupporting

confidence: 93%

“…Wildfires have increased in size and frequency throughout western United States national forests between 1980-2015 [1][2][3][4][5][6]. Increased wildfire activity already posed severe economic, social, ecological, and environmental damage such as the destruction of homes, adverse air and water quality, extra costs, and loss of life that are likely to accelerate with climate change [4,7,8].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…They reported a significant linkage between fire frequency, historical climate variability, and future climate change [10,21,40]. Gao et al, (2021) used the combination of the Global Climate Models (GCMs) and Physical Chemistry Fire Frequency Model (PC2fM) to project changes in annual fire occurrence probabilities across the contiguous United States (CONUS) [6]. They reported that the potential fire probability is likely to increase across the CONUS, particularly in high-risk areas such as the Coastal California Mountains [6].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Gao et al, (2021) used the combination of the Global Climate Models (GCMs) and Physical Chemistry Fire Frequency Model (PC2fM) to project changes in annual fire occurrence probabilities across the contiguous United States (CONUS) [6]. They reported that the potential fire probability is likely to increase across the CONUS, particularly in high-risk areas such as the Coastal California Mountains [6]. Littell et al, (2018) developed an ecologically-based climate-fire projection to investigate how future areas burned might be affected by climate change for 70 different ecosystems across the western United States [41].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Effects of Climate Change on Natural-Caused Fire Activity in Western U.S. National Forests

2021

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Climate change, with warming temperatures and shifting precipitation patterns, may increase natural-caused forest fire activity. Increasing natural-caused fires throughout western United States national forests could place people, property, and infrastructure at risk in the future. We used the fine K nearest neighbor (KNN) method coupled with the downscaled Multivariate Adaptive Constructed Analogs (MACA) climate dataset to estimate changes in the rate of natural-caused fires in western United States national forests. We projected changes in the rate of minor and major forest fires from historical (1986–2015) to future (2070–2099) conditions to characterize fire-prone national forests under a range of climate change scenarios. The results indicate that climate change can add to the occurrence of forest fires in western United States national forests, particularly in Rocky Mountain, Pacific Southwest, and Southwestern United States Forest Service regions. Although summer months are projected to have the highest rate of natural-caused forest fire activity in the future, the rate of natural-caused forest fires is likely to increase from August to December in the future compared to the historical conditions. Improved understanding of altered forest fire regimes can help forest managers to better understand the potential effects of climate change on future fire activity and implement actions to attenuate possible negative consequences.

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Section: Uncertainties and Limitationssupporting

confidence: 93%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Effects of Climate Change on Natural-Caused Fire Activity in Western U.S. National Forests

2021

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“…Future projections of precipitation are mixed, but models agree that there will be higher interannual variability (Bradford et al, 2020). These trends are resulting in high climate suitability for B. tectorum and other annual invaders (McMahon et al, 2021) as well as increased risk of large-scale wildfire across much of the area (Brown et al, 2021;Gao et al, 2021). Sagebrush shrublands are currently experiencing among the largest wildfires in the western United States (Brooks et al, 2015;Dennison et al, 2014), loss of the dominant shrub species (fire-intolerant A. tridentata), and active conversion to grasslands dominated by invasive annuals.…”

Section: Implications For Managementmentioning

confidence: 99%

Interannual climate variability mediates changes in carbon and nitrogen pools caused by annual grass invasion in a semiarid shrubland

Mahood

Jones

Board

et al. 2021

Global Change Biology

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Exotic plant invasions alter ecosystem properties and threaten ecosystem functions globally. Interannual climate variability (ICV) influences both plant community composition (PCC) and soil properties, and interactions between ICV and PCC may influence nitrogen (N) and carbon (C) pools. We asked how ICV and non-native annual grass invasion covary to influence soil and plant N and C in a semiarid shrubland undergoing widespread ecosystem transformation due to invasions and altered fire regimes.We sampled four progressive stages of annual grass invasion at 20 sites across a large (25,000 km 2 ) landscape for plant community composition, plant tissue N and C, and soil total N and C in 2013 and 2016, which followed 2 years of dry and wet conditions, respectively. Multivariate analyses and ANOVAs showed that in invasion stages where native shrub and perennial grass and forb communities were replaced by annual grassdominated communities, the ecosystem lost more soil N and C in wet years. Path analysis showed that high water availability led to higher herbaceous cover in all invasion stages. In stages with native shrubs and perennial grasses, higher perennial grass cover was associated with increased soil C and N, while in annual-dominated stages, higher annual grass cover was associated with losses of soil C and N. Also, soil total C and C:N ratios were more homogeneous in annual-dominated invasion stages as indicated by within-site standard deviations. Loss of native shrubs and perennial grasses and forbs coupled with annual grass invasion may lead to long-term declines in soil N and C and hamper restoration efforts. Restoration strategies that use innovative techniques and novel species to address increasing temperatures and ICV and emphasize maintaining plant community structure-shrubs, grasses, and forbs-will allow sagebrush ecosystems to maintain C sequestration, soil fertility, and soil heterogeneity.

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Predictive accuracy of post‐fire conifer death declines over time in models based on crown and bole injury

Shearman

Varner

Hood

et al. 2022

Ecological Applications

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A key uncertainty of empirical models of post‐fire tree mortality is understanding the drivers of elevated post‐fire mortality several years following fire, known as delayed mortality. Delayed mortality can represent a substantial fraction of mortality, particularly for large trees that are a conservation focus in western US coniferous forests. Current post‐fire tree mortality models have undergone limited evaluation of how injury level and time since fire interact to influence model accuracy and predictor variable importance. Less severe injuries potentially serve as an indicator for vulnerability to additional stressors such as bark beetle attack or moisture stress. We used a collection of 164,293 individual tree records to examine post‐fire tree mortality in eight western USA conifers: Abies concolor, Abies grandis, Calocedrus decurrens, Larix occidentalis, Pinus contorta, Pinus lambertiana, Pinus ponderosa, and Pseudotsuga menziesii. We evaluated the importance of fire injury predictors on discriminating between surviving trees versus immediate and delayed post‐fire mortality. We fit balanced random forest models for each species using cumulative tree mortality from 1 to 5‐years post‐fire. We compared these results to multi‐class random forest models using first‐year mortality, 2–5‐year mortality, and survival 5‐years post‐fire as a response variable. Crown volume scorched, diameter at breast height, and relative bark char height, were used as predictor variables. The cumulative mortality models all predicted trees that died within 1‐year of fire with high accuracy but failed to predict 2–5‐year mortality. The multi‐class models were an improvement but had lower accuracy for predicting 2–5‐year mortality. Multi‐class model accuracies ranged from 85% to 95% across all species for predicting 1‐year post‐fire mortality, 42%–71% for predicting 2–5‐year mortality, and 64%–85% for predicting trees that lived past 5‐years. Our study highlights the differences in tree species tolerance to fire injury and suggests that including second‐order predictors such as beetle attack or climatic water stress before and after fire will be critical to improve accuracy and better understand the mechanisms and patterns of fire‐caused tree death. Random forest models have potential for management applications such as post‐fire harvesting and simulating future stand dynamics.

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Robust projections of future fire probability for the conterminous United States

Cited by 42 publications

References 60 publications

Effects of Climate Change on Natural-Caused Fire Activity in Western U.S. National Forests

Effects of Climate Change on Natural-Caused Fire Activity in Western U.S. National Forests

Interannual climate variability mediates changes in carbon and nitrogen pools caused by annual grass invasion in a semiarid shrubland

Predictive accuracy of post‐fire conifer death declines over time in models based on crown and bole injury

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