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Low-intensity fires mitigate the risk of high-intensity wildfires in California’s forests
The increasing frequency of severe wildfires demands a shift in landscape management to mitigate their consequences. The role of managed, low-intensity fire as a driver of beneficial fuel treatment in fire-adapted ecosystems has drawn interest in both scientific and policy venues. Using a synthetic...
Autores principales: | , , , , |
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Formato: | Online Artículo Texto |
Lenguaje: | English |
Publicado: |
American Association for the Advancement of Science
2023
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Materias: | |
Acceso en línea: | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10637742/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37948522 http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.adi4123 |
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author | Wu, Xiao Sverdrup, Erik Mastrandrea, Michael D. Wara, Michael W. Wager, Stefan |
author_facet | Wu, Xiao Sverdrup, Erik Mastrandrea, Michael D. Wara, Michael W. Wager, Stefan |
author_sort | Wu, Xiao |
collection | PubMed |
description | The increasing frequency of severe wildfires demands a shift in landscape management to mitigate their consequences. The role of managed, low-intensity fire as a driver of beneficial fuel treatment in fire-adapted ecosystems has drawn interest in both scientific and policy venues. Using a synthetic control approach to analyze 20 years of satellite-based fire activity data across 124,186 square kilometers of forests in California, we provide evidence that low-intensity fires substantially reduce the risk of future high-intensity fires. In conifer forests, the risk of high-intensity fire is reduced by 64.0% [95% confidence interval (CI): 41.2 to 77.9%] in areas recently burned at low intensity relative to comparable unburned areas, and protective effects last for at least 6 years (lower bound of one-sided 95% CI: 6 years). These findings support a policy transition from fire suppression to restoration, through increased use of prescribed fire, cultural burning, and managed wildfire, of a presuppression and precolonial fire regime in California. |
format | Online Article Text |
id | pubmed-10637742 |
institution | National Center for Biotechnology Information |
language | English |
publishDate | 2023 |
publisher | American Association for the Advancement of Science |
record_format | MEDLINE/PubMed |
spelling | pubmed-106377422023-11-11 Low-intensity fires mitigate the risk of high-intensity wildfires in California’s forests Wu, Xiao Sverdrup, Erik Mastrandrea, Michael D. Wara, Michael W. Wager, Stefan Sci Adv Earth, Environmental, Ecological, and Space Sciences The increasing frequency of severe wildfires demands a shift in landscape management to mitigate their consequences. The role of managed, low-intensity fire as a driver of beneficial fuel treatment in fire-adapted ecosystems has drawn interest in both scientific and policy venues. Using a synthetic control approach to analyze 20 years of satellite-based fire activity data across 124,186 square kilometers of forests in California, we provide evidence that low-intensity fires substantially reduce the risk of future high-intensity fires. In conifer forests, the risk of high-intensity fire is reduced by 64.0% [95% confidence interval (CI): 41.2 to 77.9%] in areas recently burned at low intensity relative to comparable unburned areas, and protective effects last for at least 6 years (lower bound of one-sided 95% CI: 6 years). These findings support a policy transition from fire suppression to restoration, through increased use of prescribed fire, cultural burning, and managed wildfire, of a presuppression and precolonial fire regime in California. American Association for the Advancement of Science 2023-11-10 /pmc/articles/PMC10637742/ /pubmed/37948522 http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.adi4123 Text en Copyright © 2023 The Authors, some rights reserved; exclusive licensee American Association for the Advancement of Science. No claim to original U.S. Government Works. Distributed under a Creative Commons Attribution NonCommercial License 4.0 (CC BY-NC). https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) , which permits use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, so long as the resultant use is not for commercial advantage and provided the original work is properly cited. |
spellingShingle | Earth, Environmental, Ecological, and Space Sciences Wu, Xiao Sverdrup, Erik Mastrandrea, Michael D. Wara, Michael W. Wager, Stefan Low-intensity fires mitigate the risk of high-intensity wildfires in California’s forests |
title | Low-intensity fires mitigate the risk of high-intensity wildfires in California’s forests |
title_full | Low-intensity fires mitigate the risk of high-intensity wildfires in California’s forests |
title_fullStr | Low-intensity fires mitigate the risk of high-intensity wildfires in California’s forests |
title_full_unstemmed | Low-intensity fires mitigate the risk of high-intensity wildfires in California’s forests |
title_short | Low-intensity fires mitigate the risk of high-intensity wildfires in California’s forests |
title_sort | low-intensity fires mitigate the risk of high-intensity wildfires in california’s forests |
topic | Earth, Environmental, Ecological, and Space Sciences |
url | https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC10637742/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/37948522 http://dx.doi.org/10.1126/sciadv.adi4123 |
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