Spatiotemporal Prescribed Fire Patterns in Washington State, USA

Abstract

We investigate the spatiotemporal patterns of prescribed fire and wildfire within Washington State, USA using records from the state’s Department of Natural Resources (DNR). Spatiotemporal comparisons of prescribed fire and wildfire area burned revealed that (1) fire activity broadly differed between the eastern and western portion of the state in terms of total area and distribution of burn sources, (2) over the 2004–2019 period, wildfire largely replaced prescribed fire as the predominant source of burning, and (3) wildfire and prescribed fire occur during distinct months of the year. Spatiotemporal variation in prescribed fire activity at regional levels were measured using five parameters: total area burned, total biomass burned, burn days, burn approval rates, and pile burn frequency. Within-region spatial variability in prescribed fire parameters across land ownership categories and bioclimatic categories were often detectable. Regression models of the annualized prescribed fire parameters suggested that prescribed fire activities have been declining in multiple administrative regions over the 2004–2019 period. A descriptive analysis of seasonal trends found that prescribed fire use largely peaked in the fall months, with minor peaks usually occurring in the spring. Lastly, we described how area burned, biomass burned, and pile burn frequency differed between prescribed fires approved and denied by the DNR, and found that approved prescribed fires were typically smaller and burned less biomass than denied fires.

Prescribed Burning Reduces Large, High-Intensity Wildfires and Emissions in the Brazilian Savanna

“…By revealing changes in fire patterns across different fire policy phases, our results reinforce the PB concept, within the IFM program, as an essential strategy to properly reduce emissions without compromising local biodiversity and control fuel loads in the WFS to prevent large and severe wildfire occurrences [4,42,82]. The observed changes in the fire regime due to the implementation of PB, namely, reduced and a more fragmented BA with more scars in the WFS, are in agreement with other studies that analyzed PB programs worldwide [13,18,[87][88][89]. In both ITs, the total BA decreased (increased) in the WFS (MFS) with IFM, supporting PB as a potent land management tool to reduce the large extension and number of wildfires or unplanned fires.…”

“…The evaluation of PB as a fire management tool for meeting wildfire hazard reduction has been reported in several countries, such as the USA, Australia, Portugal, and South Africa [3,[10][11][12][13][14]. However, similar analyses are lacking over South America, especially Brazil, largely due to the very recent adoption of fire management policies applying and regulating PB [15].…”

The Southeastern U.S. Prescribed Fire Permit Database: Hot Spots and Hot Moments in Prescribed Fire across the Southeastern U.S.A.

“…Remote sensing approaches are also limited by the availability of cloud-free days, rapid vegetation recovery (obscuring color change), and a coarse spatial scale that misses small burns or low-intensity prescribed burns beneath forest canopies [17][18][19][20]. Recent analyses have used burn permit data to evaluate spatial and temporal patterns of burning in Georgia and Florida [16,[21][22][23] and Washington [24]. These analyses demonstrate the potential to use permit data to map prescribed fires across space and at finer temporal scales, but they are limited to the state level for only these three states.…”