Document Type

Article

Publication Title

Ecosphere

Publisher

Ecological Society of America

Publication Date

12-15-2015

Volume

6

Issue

12

Disciplines

Forest Management | Forest Sciences | Life Sciences

Abstract

Wildland fire is an important disturbance agent in the western US and globally. However, the natural role of fire has been disrupted in many regions due to the influence of human activities, which have the potential to either exclude or promote fire, resulting in a "fire deficit" or "fire surplus," respectively. In this study, we developed a model of expected area burned for the western US as a function of climate from 1984 to 2012. We then quantified departures from expected area burned to identify geographic regions with fire deficit or surplus. We developed our model of area burned as a function of several climatic variables from reference areas with low human influence; the relationship between climate and fire is strong in these areas. We then quantified the degree of fire deficit or surplus for all areas of the western US as the difference between expected (as predicted with the model) and observed area burned from 1984 to 2012. Results indicate that many forested areas in the western US experienced a fire deficit from 1984 to 2012, likely due to fire exclusion by human activities. We also found that large expanses of non-forested regions experienced a fire surplus, presumably due to introduced annual grasses and the prevalence of anthropogenic ignitions. The heterogeneity in patterns of fire deficit and surplus among ecoregions emphasizes fundamentally different ecosystem sensitivities to human influences and suggests that large scale adaptation and mitigation strategies will be necessary in order to restore and maintain resilient, healthy, and naturally functioning ecosystems.

Keywords

climate, fire deficit, fire departure, fire exclusion, fire suppression, fire surplus, invasive species, protected areas, wilderness, wildland fire

DOI

10.1890/ES15-00294.1

Rights

© 2015 Parks et al.

Creative Commons License

Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License.

Download

Share

COinS