Automated workflow demonstrates mixed treatment impacts on burn severity across ecoregion scales
| Authors: | Hannah M. Van Dusen, Caden P. Chamberlain, Betsy Black, Alexander P. Arkowitz, Andrew S. Johnson, Camille S. Stevens-Rumann, Michael A. Battaglia, Eric E. Knapp, Mark R. Kreider, Jessica R. Miesel, Alina Cansler, Jonathan Batchelor, Ernesto Alvarado, Leo O'Neill, Morris Johnson, Matthew B. Dickinson, Jens Stevens |
| Year: | 2026 |
| Type: | Scientific Journal |
| Station: | Rocky Mountain Research Station |
| DOI: | https://doi.org/10.1071/WF25304 |
| Source: | International Journal of Wildland Fire |
Abstract
Intensifying wildfire activity in western North America has motivated focus on fuel treatments as a tool for moderating fire severity. Treatment effectiveness is influenced by complex interactions among biophysical settings, treatments and weather.
This study introduces a standardized, scalable workflow to quantify wildfire-treatment outcomes across diverse landscapes.
We evaluated federal fuel treatments across 50 wildfires in southern Oregon and Northern California (2012–2021). We analyzed outcomes across two distinct landscapes: the productive, western Klamath mountains (west) and the more arid southeastern Cascades (east) to predict the probability of high severity fire.
In the east, treatments reduced the probability of high-severity fire, especially treatments less than 9 years old. Thinning followed by prescribed fire mitigated high-severity effects even during extreme fire conditions. Conversely, in the west, large fire spread days primarily predicted high severity, masking the effect of treatments and other bottom-up drivers.
In pine systems with low topographic complexity, fuel treatments that remove both canopy and surface fuels from stands lower the likelihood of high severity fire within 9 years of implementation, including under extreme fire conditions.
This study proposes an open-source workflow to evaluate the conditions which treatments are effective across large landscapes.