[MCN] Rethinking the focus on forest fires in federal wildland fire management: Landscape patterns and trends of non-forest and forest burned area

[Patty A]

Thanks Lance,

This is a vitally important paper; it helps to debunk the myths and
propaganda related to the need to clear cut and "manage" forests for fire
mitigation.

Patty

On Sat, Jan 14, 2023 at 10:49 AM Lance Olsen via Missoula-Community-News <
missoula-community-news at bigskynet.org> wrote:

> Journal of Environmental Management
> <https://www.sciencedirect.com/journal/journal-of-environmental-management> 1
> February 2023
>
> *Rethinking the focus on forest fires in federal wildland fire management:
> Landscape patterns and trends of non-forest and forest burned area*
> Michele R.Crist
> https://doi.org/10.1016/j.jenvman.2022.116718
>
>
> *Highlights*
>
> •Wildland fire policies and management have primarily focused on forested
> lands.
> •Landscape metrics quantified wildfire spatial patterns and trends of
> burned area over two decades.
> •Nonforest lands had more area burned, increased fire cycles, and larger
> fire sizes than forested.
> •Comparison among federal agencies showed increasing but opposite wildfire
> patterns and trends.
> •Findings have strong implications for wildland fire management focused
> solely on forest fire.
>
> *Abstract*
>
> For most of the 20th century and beyond, national wildland fire policies
> concerning fire suppression and fuels management have primarily focused on
> forested lands. Using summary statistics and landscape metrics, wildfire
> spatial patterns and trends for non-forest and forest burned area over the
> past two decades were examined across the U.S, and federal agency
> jurisdictions. This study found that wildfires burned more area of
> non-forest lands than forest lands at the scale of the conterminous and
> western U.S. and the Department of Interior (DOI). In an agency comparison,
> 74% of DOI burned area occurred on non-forest lands and 78% of U.S. Forest
> Service burned area occurred on forested lands. Landscape metrics revealed
> key differences between forest and non-forest fire patterns and trends in
> total burned area, burned patch size, distribution, and aggregation over
> time across the western U.S. Opposite fire patterns emerged between
> non-forest and forest burns when analyzed at the scale of federal agency
> jurisdictions. In addition, a fire regime departure analysis comparing
> current large fire probability with historic fire trends identified certain
> vegetation types and locations experiencing more fire than historically.
> These patterns were especially pronounced for cold desert shrublands, such
> as sagebrush where increases in annual area burned, and fire frequency,
> size, and juxtaposition have resulted in substantial losses over a
> twenty-year period. The emerging non-forest fire patterns are primarily
> due to the rapid expansion of non-native invasive grasses that increase
> fuel connectivity and fire spread. These invasions promote uncharacteristic
> frequent fire and loss of native ecosystems at large-scales, accelerating
> the need to place greater focus on managing invasive species in wildland
> fire management. Results can be used to inform wildfire management and
> policy aimed at reducing uncharacteristic wildfire processes and patterns
> for both non-forest and forest ecosystems as well as identify differing
> management strategies needed to address the unique wildfire issues each
> federal agency faces.
>
> ======================================================
>
> “Serious thresholds are crossed when forests convert to vegetation types
> without trees... ”
>
> Constance I. Millar and Nathan L. Stephenson.
> Temperate forest health in an era of emerging megadisturbance. Science  21
> August 2015
> ======================================================
>
> "… the race between climate dynamics and  climate policy will be a close
> one …."
>
> Hans Joachim Schellenhuber. “Global warming: Stop worrying and start
> panicking?”
> Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences 2008
>
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