Wildfires in boreal ecosystems: past, present and some emerging trends

Abstract

Abstract. With the emergence of a new forest management paradigm based on the emulation of natural disturbance regimes, interest in fire-related studies has increased in the boreal forest management community. A key issue in this regard is the improvement of our understanding of the variability in past disturbances and its linkages with climate and ecosystems. The surge in research activity has further been exacerbated by the increasing awareness of climate change, which has already exposed boreal forests to greater fire risk in recent decades. It is anticipated that further warming and drying will further enhance fire frequency and area burned in many boreal forests. Better predictions of future fire activity will contribute to better long-term forest planning in managed boreal forests. The 12 papers presented in this special issue exemplify this increased research activity by bringing together studies from diverse disciplines and presenting the latest advances regarding methodological approaches for reconstruction and modelling of past, present and future fire activity. Here we aim to summarise, evaluate and set into context some of the new insights arising from these studies and also to discuss some considerations to be taken into account in future research activities.

Carbon dynamics in the future forest: the importance of long‐term successional legacy and climate–fire interactions

“…This is especially true given current stand conditions that promote more damaging wildfires, such as high surface fuel loads and high densities of younger trees (ladder fuels) and snags (Agee & Skinner, ). Similar effects of changing climate–fire dynamics have been found throughout western forests, including the Sierra Nevada (Littell et al ., ), as well as in boreal systems (Girardin et al ., ), south African systems (Archibald et al ., ), and projected globally (Gonzalez et al ., ).…”

Fire and lichen dynamics in the Taiga Shield of the Northwest Territories and implications for barren‐ground caribou winter forage

“…We found no evidence of an increase in AAB or overall number of fires per year in the NWT Taiga Shield since the start of fire records in 1965, consistent with Rickbiel, Hermosilla, Coops, White, and Wulder (). However, many studies have shown or predicted an increase in AAB and fire frequency in Canadian boreal forests, primarily due to increased summer drought conditions (Flannigan, Krawchuk, deGroot, Wotton, & Gowman, ; Gillett, Weaver, Zwiers, & Flannigan, ; Girardin, Ali, & Hély, ; Kasischke & Turetsky, ). The susceptibility of forests in our study area to frequent and large fires appears to be influenced more by the effects of temperature on fuel dryness, than by precipitation despite similar precipitation levels as those reported by Larsen () and McCoy and Burn ().…”

The smokescreen of Russian protected areas

“…Lena Pillars, which was a Nature Park since 1994, was nominated World Heritage Site in 2012, is the youngest of the 201 protected areas analysed in this study. Most of the forest loss occurred in this area in -2004and 2011), when it was already protected (but before the establishment of the World Heritage Site in 2012). However, in 2013 (just one year after its nomination by UNESCO) and then in 2016 and 2018, high other-than-fire loss peaks were recorded.…”

“…In the last decades, however, large areas of Russian boreal forests have been damaged by different factors (mainly logging and fires), which led to significant forest loss (Girardin et al, 2011;Pyzhev et al, 2021). Boreal forests in Russia play a crucial role in climate change because they are an important carbon sink, holding almost 50% of the northern hemisphere's terrestrial carbon.…”