Articles

Conflicting Perspectives on Spotted Owls, Wildfire, and Forest Restoration

Evidence of increasing fire extent and severity in the western US in recent decades has raised concern over the effects of fire on threatened species such as the spotted owl (Strix occidentalis Xantus de Vesey), ...

Authors: Joseph L. Ganey, Ho Yi Wan, Samuel A. Cushman and Christina D. Vojta

Do Post-Fire Mulching Treatments Affect Regeneration in Serotinous Lodgepole Pine?

Broadcast mulching is a widely implemented post-fire erosion control method, although it remains uncertain how it affects post-fire regeneration in serotinous conifers. We used field data and unbiased conditio...

Authors: Micah Wright and Monique Rocca

Impacts of Mastication Fuel Treatments on California, USA, Chaparral Vegetation Structure and Composition

Mechanical fuel treatments are a primary pre-fire strategy for potentially mitigating the threat of wildland fire, yet there is limited information on how they impact shrubland ecosystems. Our goal was to asse...

Authors: Teresa J. Brennan and Jon E. Keeley

Ecological Impacts of Fire Trails on Plant Assemblages in Edge Habitat Adjacent to Trails

Fire trails provide access into vegetation for controlled burns in fire-prone regions of the world. We examined the ecological impacts of fire trails on plant assemblages in edge habitat adjacent to trails in ...

Authors: Daniel W. Krix, Matthew C. Hingee, Leigh J. Martin, Megan L. Phillips and Brad R. Murray

Growth-Form Responses to Fire in Nama-Karoo Escarpment Grassland, South Africa

Fire is a rare phenomenon in the semi-arid Nama-Karoo region of South Africa, but appears to have become more common in recent years, possibly as a result of climate change. The ecological effects of fire in t...

Authors: Tineke Kraaij, Cyanne Young and Hugo Bezuidenhout

Fire and Floods: The Recovery of Headwater Stream Systems Following High-Severity Wildfire

This study examined the recovery of both physical and biotic characteristics of small (<0.1 m³ sec⁻¹) headwater stream systems impacted by the Dude Fire, which occurred in central Arizona, USA, in 1990. Data coll...

Authors: Jackson M. Leonard, Hugo A. Magaña, Randy K. Bangert, Daniel G. Neary and Willson L. Montgomery

Long-Term Effects of Burn Season and Frequency on Ponderosa Pine Forest Fuels and Seedlings

Prescribed fire is widely applied in western US forests to limit future fire severity by reducing tree density, fuels, and excessive seedlings. Repeated prescribed burning attempts to simulate historical fire ...

Authors: Douglas J. Westlind and Becky K. Kerns

Prescribed Fire in Grassland Butterfly Habitat: Targeting Weather and Fuel Conditions to Reduce Soil Temperatures and Burn Severity

Prescribed burning is a primary tool for habitat restoration and management in fire-adapted grasslands. Concerns about detrimental effects of burning on butterfly populations, however, can inhibit implementati...

Authors: Kathryn C. Hill, Jonathan D. Bakker and Peter W. Dunwiddie

Fires Following Bark Beetles: Factors Controlling Severity and Disturbance Interactions in Ponderosa Pine

Previous studies have suggested that bark beetles and fires can be interacting disturbances, whereby bark beetle-caused tree mortality can alter the risk and severity of subsequent wildland fires. However, the...

Authors: Carolyn H. Sieg, Rodman R. Linn, Francois Pimont, Chad M. Hoffman, Joel D. McMillin, Judith Winterkamp and L. Scott Baggett

Fire Response to Local Climate Variability: Huascarán National Park, Peru

In Huascarán National Park (HNP), Peru, grazing and anthropogenic burning have been interacting for decades with natural ignitions and climate variability to reconfigure the fire regimes of the vegetative comm...

Authors: John All, Michael Medler, Sylvie Arques, Rebecca Cole, Tommy Woodall, Justin King, Jun Yan and Carl Schmitt

Selecting Control Sites for Post-Fire Ecological Studies Using Biological Criteria and MODIS Time Series Data

Wildland fires play a key role in the functioning and structure of vegetation. The availability of sensors aboard satellites, such as Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS), makes possible the c...

Authors: Marcos A. Landi, Carlos Di Bella, Silvia Ojeda, Paola Salvatierra, Juan Argañaraz and Laura M. Bellis

Accommodating Mixed-Severity Fire to Restore and Maintain Ecosystem Integrity with a Focus on the Sierra Nevada of California, USA

Existing fire policy encourages the maintenance of ecosystem integrity in fire management, yet this is difficult to implement on lands managed for competing economic, human safety, and air quality concerns. We...

Authors: Dominick A. DellaSala, Richard L. Hutto, Chad T. Hanson, Monica L. Bond, Timothy Ingalsbee, Dennis Odion and William L. Baker

Black Carbon on Coarse Woody Debris in Once- and Twice-Burned Mixed-Conifer Forest

One important outcome of wildfire is the production of charcoal. Charcoal is highly resistant to decomposition and its physical and chemical properties enhance soil fertility and influence nutrient cycling. We...

Authors: Aspen Ward, C. Alina Cansler and Andrew J. Larson

Vegetation Responses to Season of Fire in Tallgrass Prairie: A 13-Year Case Study

Fire regulates vegetation composition of fire-dependent grasslands in North American tallgrass prairies. We measured the vegetation response to prescribed fire seasonality by burning in two-month increments ev...

Authors: John R. Weir and J. Derek Scasta

Decade-Long Plant Community Responses to Shrubland Fuel Hazard Reduction

Fuel hazard reduction treatments such as prescribed fire and mastication are widely used to reduce fuel hazard. These treatments help protect people from wildfire, yet may not be mutually beneficial for people...

Authors: Katherine M. Wilkin, Lauren C. Ponisio, Danny L. Fry, Carmen L. Tubbesing, Jennifer B. Potts and Scott L. Stephens

Predicting Post-Fire Tree Mortality for 12 Western US Conifers Using the First Order Fire Effects Model (FOFEM)

Accurate prediction of fire-caused tree mortality is critical for making sound land management decisions such as developing burning prescriptions and post-fire management guidelines. To improve efforts to pred...

Authors: Sharon Hood and Duncan Lutes

Fire Reduces Fungal Species Richness and In Situ Mycorrhizal Colonization: A Meta-Analysis

Soil fungal communities perform many functions that help plants meet their nutritional demands. However, overall trends for fungal response to fire, which can be especially critical in a post-fire context, hav...

Authors: Nicholas C. Dove and Stephen C. Hart

Historical Fire-Climate Relationships in Contrasting Interior Pacific Northwest Forest Types

Describing the climate influences on historical wildland fire will aid managers in planning for future change. This study uses existing historical climate reconstructions and a new fire history from the southe...

Authors: James D. Johnston, John D. Bailey, Christopher J. Dunn and Amanda A. Lindsay

Prescribed Burning in Ponderosa Pine: Fuel Reductions and Redistributing Fuels near Boles to Prevent Injury

Fire suppression and other factors have resulted in high wildfire risk in the western US, and prescribed burning can be an effective tool for thinning forests and reducing fuels to lessen wildfire risks. Howev...

Authors: Robert A. Progar, Kathryn H. Hrinkevich, Edward S. Clark and Matthew J. Rinella

Smoke Water and Heat Influence Emergence of Shortgrass Prairie Species

Exposure to smoke can influence the germination of seeds in many fire-prone ecosystems, but this effect is not well studied in grasslands. Smoke treatments such as smoke water could be useful as management and...

Authors: Robert D. Cox, Yi-Fang Chou and David B. Wester

The Effects of Fire and Manual Biomass Removal on the Vegetation of Granite Inselbergs

The vegetation on granite inselbergs (island mountains) within the New England Bioregion of eastern Australia and the adjacent matrix were chosen as subjects in this study on the effects of aboveground biomass...

Authors: John T. Hunter

Shrub Communities, Spatial Patterns, and Shrub-Mediated Tree Mortality following Reintroduced Fire in Yosemite National Park, California, USA

Shrubs contribute to the forest fuel load; their distribution is important to tree mortality and regeneration, and vertebrate occupancy. We used a method new to fire ecology—extensive continuous mapping of tre...

Authors: James A. Lutz, Tucker J. Furniss, Sara J. Germain, Kendall M. L. Becker, Erika M. Blomdahl, Sean M. A. Jeronimo, C. Alina Cansler, James A. Freund, Mark E. Swanson and Andrew J. Larson

Resilience of California Black Oak Experiencing Frequent Fire: Regeneration Following Two Large Wildfires 12 Years Apart

Historically, oak woodlands in western North America were maintained by frequent fire that killed competing conifers. Today, these woodlands are often in decline as competition from conifers intensifies. Among...

Authors: Ethan J. Hammett, Martin W. Ritchie and John-Pascal Berrill

Corroborating Evidence of a Pre-Euro-American Low- to Moderate-Severity Fire Regime in Yellow Pine-Mixed Conifer Forests of the Sierra Nevada, California, USA

Fire was the dominant ecological process controlling forest structure and succession in western North American conifer forests for thousands of years. Because fires are now suppressed, and because widespread l...

Authors: Jay D. Miller and Hugh D. Safford

Carbon Emissions during Wildland Fire on a North American Temperate Peatland

Northern temperate zone (30° to 50° latitude) peatlands store a large proportion of the world’s terrestrial carbon (C) and are subject to high-intensity, stand-replacing wildfires characterized by flaming stag...

Authors: Robert A. Mickler, David P. Welch and Andrew D. Bailey

The Influence of Western Spruce Budworm on Fire in Spruce-Fir Forests

Western spruce budworm (Choristoneura freemani Razowski; WSBW) is the most significant defoliator of coniferous trees in the western United States. Despite its important influence on Western forests, there are st...

Authors: Eric Vane, Kristen Waring and Adam Polinko

Fire History and Forest Structure along an Elevational Gradient in the Southern Cascade Range, Oregon, USA

We examined stand structure, demography, and fire history using tree cores and fire scar data across an approximately 7000-hectare study area over an elevational gradient in the southern Cascade Range, Oregon,...

Authors: Alison B. Forrestel, Robert A. Andrus, Danny L. Fry and Scott L. Stephens

The Chinchaga Firestorm: When the Moon and Sun Turned Blue. 2015. By Cordy Tymstra. University of Alberta Press, Edmonton, Canada. Softcover. CA$34.50. 227 pages. ISBN 978-1-77212-003-5

Authors: James K. Agee

Did the 2002 Hayman Fire, Colorado, USA, Burn with Uncharacteristic Severity?

There is considerable interest in evaluating whether recent wildfires in dry conifer forests of western North America are burning with uncharacteristic severity—that is, with a severity outside the historical ...

Authors: Paula J. Fornwalt, Laurie S. Huckaby, Steven K. Alton, Merrill R. Kaufmann, Peter M. Brown and Antony S. Cheng

Relating Fire-Caused Change in Forest Structure to Remotely Sensed Estimates of Fire Severity

Fire severity maps are an important tool for understanding fire effects on a landscape. The relative differenced normalized burn ratio (RdNBR) is a commonly used severity index in California forests, and is ty...

Authors: Jamie M. Lydersen, Brandon M. Collins, Jay D. Miller, Danny L. Fry and Scott L. Stephens

Short-Term Impacts of Fire-Mediated Habitat Alterations on an Isolated Bighorn Sheep Population

Habitat alterations may improve and expand wildlife habitats, and bolster waning wildlife populations. We used global positioning system (GPS) locations to monitor 38 bighorn sheep (Ovis canadensis Shaw) that wer...

Authors: Justin G. Clapp and Jeffrey L. Beck

Post-Fire Recovery of Eucalypt-Dominated Vegetation Communities in the Sydney Basin, Australia

Monitoring landscape-scale vegetation responses of resprouter species to wildfire is helpful in explaining post-wildfire recovery. Several previous Australian studies have investigated the temporal recovery of...

Authors: Jessica T. Heath, Chris J. Chafer, Thomas F. A. Bishop and Floris F. Van Ogtrop

Variation in Grassland Fuel Curing in South Africa

Fire is critical to the maintenance of ecological function in many ecosystems worldwide, especially mesic sub-Saharan rangelands. But most rangeland fire research occurs in a wildfire context, is focused on fi...

Authors: Devan Allen McGranahan, Rerani Ramaano, Michelle J. Tedder and Kevin P. Kirkman

Fire Resilience of Aquatic Crustacean Resting Stages in Playa Wetlands, Oklahoma, USA

Prescribed burns and wildfires maintain prairie vegetation by limiting tree growth and promoting prairie grasses and forb production. Previous studies have shown that fire causes mixed effects on the prairie f...

Authors: Eric G. Bright, Mohsain Gill, Ashtyn Barrientes and Elizabeth A. Bergey

Evaluating Prescribed Fire Effectiveness Using Permanent Monitoring Plot Data: A Case Study

Since Euro-American settlement, ponderosa pine forests throughout the western United States have shifted from high fire frequency and open canopy savanna forests to infrequent fire and dense, closed canopy for...

Authors: Kristen M. Waring, Kristen J. Hansen and William T. Flatley

Farewell and Thanks to Jim Agee, Editor of Fire Ecology

Authors:

Oak, Fire, and Global Change in the Eastern USA: What Might the Future Hold?

The pace of environmental and socioeconomic change over the past 100 years has been rapid. Changes in fire regimes, climate, and land use have shaped the structure and function of most forest ecosystems, inclu...

Authors: James M. Vose and Katherine J. Elliott

Fire Effects on Wildlife in the Central Hardwoods and Appalachian Regions, USA

Fire is being prescribed and used increasingly to promote ecosystem restoration (e.g., oak woodlands and savannas) and to manage wildlife habitat in the Central Hardwoods and Appalachian regions, USA. However,...

Authors: Craig A. Harper, W. Mark Ford, Marcus A. Lashley, Christopher E. Moorman and Michael C. Stambaugh

Natural Canopy Damage and the Ecological Restoration of Fire-Indicative Groundcover Vegetation in an Oak-Pine Forest

An important goal of restoring fire to upland oak-dominated communities that have experienced fire exclusion is restoring groundcover plant species diversity and composition indicative of fire-maintained habit...

Authors: J. Stephen Brewer

Hardwood-Pine Mixedwoods Stand Dynamics following Thinning and Prescribed Burning

Restoration of hardwood-pine (Pinus L.) mixedwoods is an important management goal in many pine plantations in the southern Cumberland Plateau in north-central Alabama, USA. Pine plantations have been relatively ...

Authors: Callie Jo Schweitzer, Daniel C. Dey and Yong Wang

Scale Dependence of Oak woodland Historical Fire Intervals: Contrasting the barrens of Tennessee and Cross timbers of Oklahoma, USA

Characterization of scale dependence of fire intervals could inform interpretations of fire history and improve fire prescriptions that aim to mimic historical fire regime conditions. We quantified the tempora...

Authors: Michael C. Stambaugh, Richard P. Guyette, Joseph M. Marschall and Daniel C. Dey

Suites of Fire-Adapted traits of Oaks in the Southeastern USA: Multiple Strategies for Persistence

Fire is integral to the functioning of terrestrial ecosystems of the southeastern USA and is a strong selective force on plant species. Among woody plants, oak species (Quercus spp. L) have diverse life history t...

Authors: J. Morgan Varner, Jeffrey M. Kane, J. Kevin Hiers, Jesse K. Kreye and Joseph W. Veldman

Repeated Application of Fuel Reduction Treatments in the Southern Appalachian Mountains, USA: Implications for Achieving Management Goals

Fire and resource managers of the southern Appalachian Mountains, USA, have many questions about the use of prescribed fire and mechanical treatments to meet various land management objectives. Three common ob...

Authors: Thomas A. Waldrop, Donald L. Hagan and Dean M. Simon

Northern Long-Eared Bat Day-Roosting and Prescribed Fire in the Central Appalachians, USA

The northern long-eared bat (Myotis septentrionalis Trovessart) is a cavity-roosting species that forages in cluttered upland and riparian forests throughout the oak-dominated Appalachian and Central Hardwoods re...

Authors: W. Mark Ford, Alexander Silvis, Joshua B. Johnson, John W. Edwards and Milu Karp

Fire in the History of Mettler’s Woods

Authors: Murray F. Buell, Helen F. Buell and John A. Small

Sowing the Seeds of Fire and Oak in the Eastern US: A Tribute to Buell et al. 1954

A 323-year-old white oak (Quercus alba L.) tree in Mettler’s Woods in central New Jersey, USA, was the subject of the Buell et al. 1954 paper. They identified six fire scars formed between 1641 and 1711, with a m...

Authors: Marc D. Abrams

Fire in Eastern north American Oak Ecosystems: Filling the Gaps

This special issue of Fire Ecology is focused on the fire ecology of eastern USA oak (Quercus L.) forests, woodlands, and savannas. The papers were presented as part of the Fifth Fire in Eastern Oak Forests Confe...

Authors: J. Morgan Varner, Mary A. Arthur, Stacy L. Clark, Daniel C. Dey, Justin L. Hart and Callie J. Schweitzer

Firestick Ecology: Fairdinkum Science in Plain English. 2015. By Vic Jurskis. Connor Court Publishing, Redland Bay, Queensland, Australia. 325 pages. Hardcover. AU$34.95. ISBN: 978-1-925138-74-0

Authors: Lachlan McCaw

The Passing of the Lolo Trail

Authors: Elers Koch

Introduction to the Article by Elers Koch: The Passing of the Lolo Trail

In 1935, Elers Koch argued in a Journal of Forestry article that a minimum fire protection model should be implemented in the backcountry areas of national forests in Idaho, USA. As a USDA Forest Service Supervis...

Authors: Andrew J. Larson