Abstract
Context
Restoring wide areas of fire excluded western US landscapes to fuel limited, fire resilient systems where fires self-regulate and burn with low or mixed severity will require expanded use of both prescribed and natural fire, coupled with strategic mechanical fuels management. However, optimal admixtures of fire and fuel management to set landscapes on trajectories to improve fire resilience and conserve carbon are not well understood.
Objectives
To understand the effect of accelerating restoration and fuel management in response to potential future fire regimes on a large fire excluded mixed-owner forest landscape.
Methods
We simulated 50-year wildfire and active forest management scenarios on a multi-owner landscape in southcentral Oregon, crossed in a factorial design with a range of wildfire and forest management intensities.
Results
Wildfire was more efficient at reducing potential high-severity fire, whereas restoration treatments created patches of fire resilient old forest, especially on federally managed land. With some exceptions, both disturbances reduced aboveground carbon over time, although the magnitude varied among the combinations of fire and active management intensities. We observed interactive effects from specific combinations of fire and management in landscape response metrics compared to stand-alone disturbances.
Conclusions
Fire and active management have similar landscape outcomes for some but not all restoration objectives, and active management will be required under future predicted fire regimes to conserve and create fire resilient old forest. Achieving widespread fire resilient forest structure will be limited by divergent landowner management behaviors on mixed-owner landscapes.
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Data availability
Data available from authors upon request.
Code availability
Not applicable.
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Acknowledgements
This research was partially funded by the National Science Foundation, Coupled Human and Natural Systems Program (NSF Grant CHH-1013296), the USDA Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station. We thank Haiganoush Preisler for assistance with the statistical analysis, Chris Ringo for geoprocessing model outputs, and Rachel Houtman for editorial assistance.
Funding
This research was partially funded by the National Science Foundation, Coupled Human and Natural Systems Program (NSF Grant CHH-1013296), the USDA Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station. We also thank Stu Britain and Haiganoush Preisler for their respective contributions to the development of the of the wildfire submodel in Envision. We thank two anonymous reviewers for helpful comments.
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Ager, A.A., Barros, A.M.G. & Day, M.A. Contrasting effects of future wildfire and forest management scenarios on a fire excluded western US landscape. Landsc Ecol 37, 1091–1112 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-022-01414-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-022-01414-y