Articles

It is often assumed that the thinning effects of fire mean that surviving trees grow more and have more water available to them. However, fire may also come with costs. Trees that survive fire, but sustain fire-caused injuries, may experience a temporary period of reduced growth and greater vulnerability to drought before they are able to take advantage of the effects of stand density reduction (such as less competition for water). This window of vulnerability is due to negative effects from fire-caused injuries like crown scorch, with more severe injuries likely having a stronger negative impact.

We often hear about the need to expand the pace and scale of hazardous fuel treatments that can reduce wildfire risk. Prescribed burning is one of the most important management tools for getting that work done. By looking at records of past burns and their associated weather conditions in northern California, our team gained a better understanding of what constitutes a suitable burn window, and we identified areas and times of year most favorable for prescribed burning.

Survival of western larch seedlings planted after a wildfire was driven mostly by site conditions—hot, dry, southwest‑facing locations had far higher mortality regardless of seed source. Seedlings from low‑elevation seed sources handled heat better, but the biggest determinant of success was simply planting in cooler, moister microsites.

This collection of research leverages a comprehensive dataset of wildfires spanning recent decades to examine patterns of and trends in ignitions across the western United States. Human-caused ignitions account for over 60% of all recorded wildfires across the western US and are responsible for the vast majority of wildfire-related societal impacts, underscoring the value of effective wildfire prevention and risk-mitigation strategies.

Managers need good maps to make good decisions, particularly at the project level, where fine details matter. FastFuels is a data-on-demand mapping platform that leverages multiple data sources to provide high fidelity forest and fuel data for a typical user-specified area within minutes. 3D data can be used with next generation fire models, supporting forest management, fuel treatment planning, prescribed fire planning, and risk assessment and mitigation efforts.

Terrain-induced wake vortices can generate tornado-scale fire whirls. The Deer Creek Fire provided a natural laboratory for understanding fire-generated tornadic vortices and their relationship to deep convection. This event involved ingestion of ambient vertical vorticity from a terrain-generated mountain wake. The observed sequence—shedding of von Kármán wake vortices, fire intensificatio...

The FireWorks curriculum has become an essential resource for educators because it makes fire science accessible, relatable, and fun. Thousands of students use the program each year, gaining a clearer understanding of wildfire and its role in the environment—knowledge that is increasingly important as many communities experience more fire.

The NOAA Fire Weather Testbed facilitated integration of the Forest Service’s WindNinja model into the National Weather Service's spot weather forecasting system. This allows forecasters the new capability to run and visualize WindNinja in operational viewers for automated spot weather forecasts.

Fire managers rely on fuel moisture and wildfire danger models to assess conditions for prescribed burning and prioritize resources during busy wildfire seasons. These models have historically focused on the moisture content of surface fuels, like sticks and logs, but have ignored the role of soil moisture and its effects on living fuels, such as shrubs and trees. As it turns out, soil moisture is a critical driver of fire spread.

The Wildfire Risk to Communities data viewer is the latest addition to the suite of tools developed to help communities understand, explore, and reduce wildfire risk. The new data viewer makes the entire suite of WRC data available to anyone, without the need for GIS software or managing large data files.

User feedback is key to future improvements of the Interagency Fuel Treatment Decision Support System. In 2023, partners from the University of Idaho interviewed 47 IFTDSS users to gain a better understanding of how users use the system, what they like, and what they’d like to change. This feedback will help the tool evolve to continue to meet the needs of the fuels management community.

Changing fire regimes combine with improvements in wildfire risk technology to impact the spatial pattern and magnitude of simulated wildfire transmission to communities.

FSim is a wildfire simulation system that models hundreds of millions of large fire events to produce national-scale maps of wildfire probability and intensity – which are critical components of risk.

Replacing traditional wood burning outdoor fire pits and fire rings with fire pits specifically designed to function as low-smoke could significantly reduce fine particulate matter and other air pollutants produced during recreational outdoor burning.

Trees are less able to survive fire when they are affected by severe drought, which may reduce the resilience of western forests.

The Fireshed Registry is a geospatial dashboard where land managers and decision makers can view and map data related to wildfire exposure, completed management actions, and past and predicted wildfires.

The Fire Effects Information System has moved and improved – now it is even easier to find information about individual species, ecosystems, and their relationships with fire.

GeoLCES provides a geospatial framework for evaluating wildland firefighter lookouts, communications, escape routes, and safety zones.

The Wildfire Risk to Carbon dashboard allows users to visualize and analyze risk to forest and rangeland carbon from wildfire and estimate annual smoke emissions.

Recent experiments show that even "fire-safe" cigarettes can start a wildfire.