Using wildfire to restore resiliency to dry pine ecosystems

Managing wildfires for resource objectives diminishes the likelihood of future extreme fire events. The dry pine forest ecosystems in the southwestern United States and elsewhere have been transformed by decades of fire exclusion, resulting in a loss of fire resiliency over much of the landscape. Increasingly, fires are burning at higher severity and over larger areas with manifold adverse effects on long-term forest conditions. There is a growing sense of urgency to address these challenges given recent projections of a warming climate. One tool to restore these ecosystems is to expand the practice of carefully managing natural ignitions for their beneficial effects. To expand and accelerate restoration efforts, land managers have been augmenting contemporary forest restoration treatments such as thinning, mastication, and prescribed fire with this approach, commonly referred to as resource objective wildfire. However, there is little known about how the expanded use of resource objective wildfire in concert with conventional restoration treatments might alter forest structure and future fire regimes.

Photo Credit

USDA Forest Service photo by Brady Smith

Using a forest landscape model, researchers simulated scenarios that combined resource objective wildfire with different levels of conventional restoration treatments and measured the response in terms of area burned, fire severity, and high severity patch dynamics over a 50-year period. They found that accelerating the application of treatments concurrent with the use of resource objective wildfires restored the landscape in 25 years. 

The study contributes to understanding the potential long-term benefits of resource objective wildfire in concert with conventional restoration treatments in terms of future fire severity, wildlife habitat, and patch dynamics of high severity fire. Managing wildfires for resource objectives diminished the likelihood of extreme fire events and reduced the proportion of high-severity fire in relation to total area burned. Adding resource objective wildfire to the current rate of forest restoration expanded the area treated fivefold. Restoration objectives were achieved in 25 years when the rate of forest restoration was increased five times the current pace alongside the use of resource objective wildfire.