Driven by climate change and other factors, wildfires are getting faster and more severe. That could have big, long-term consequences for forested ecosystems.
The faster a fire burns, the more severe its ecological impacts. That's one of the findings of a new paper in the journal Science Advances. Climate change only promises to further accelerate those fires, according to lead author Jonathan Coop.
"These are the kinds of fires that set the stage for these long term ecosystem transitions, which in some cases, is a shift from a forest to something that doesn't resemble a forest anymore," he said.
In a separate recent paper comparing current high-severity fire regimes to the lower-intensity ones of centuries past, Coop and his co-authors wrote that the way fires burn today appears "incompatible with dry-conifer forest persistence."
"As climate change progresses, we anticipate that species are going to have to move to wherever their preferred climate moves," Coop explained. "And in the case of forests, we anticipate changes in the distributions of forest types across the North American forest biome."
But wildfire can act as a powerful accelerant of that relatively slow trend.
"Fire is a process that can catalyze the long-term transition towards a non-forest condition," he said. "We're certainly seeing that in many parts of the Southwestern U.S., parts of the Sierras in California, portions of the interior West."
To address this threat, Coop recommends a number of policy responses, including expanded use of prescribed fire, allowing wildfires to burn when it's safe to do so and enabling more Indigenous-led cultural burning. By reducing brush, trees and other dangerously accumulated fuels, such practices can reduce fire severity, as well as threats to lives and property.
"There's a mindset out there that we just have to get better at stopping fire when what we really need is to get better at having fire," Coop said.
This story was produced by the Mountain West News Bureau, a collaboration between Boise State Public Radio, Wyoming Public Media, Nevada Public Radio, KUNR in Nevada, KUNC in Northern Colorado, KANW in New Mexico, Colorado Public Radio and KJZZ in Arizona as well as NPR, with support from affiliate newsrooms across the region. Funding for the Mountain West News Bureau is provided in part by the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and Eric and Wendy Schmidt.
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