Prescribed fire has been increasingly promoted to reduce wildfire risk and restore fire‐adapted ecosystems. Yet, the complexities of forest ecosystem dynamics in response to disturbances, climate change, and drought stress, combined with myriad social and policy barriers, have inhibited widespread implementation. Using the forest succession model LANDIS‐II, we investigated the likely impacts of increasing prescribed fire frequency and extent on wildfire severity and forest carbon storage at local and landscape scales. Specifically, we ask how much prescribed fire is required to maintain carbon storage and reduce the severity and extent of wildfires under divergent climate change scenarios? We simulated four prescribed fire scenarios (no prescribed fire, business‐as‐usual, moderate increase, and large increase) in the Siskiyou Mountains of northwest California and southwest Oregon. At the local site scale, prescribed fires lowered the severity of projected wildfires and maintained approximately the same level of ecosystem carbon storage when reapplied at a ~15‐year return interval for 50‐year simulations. Increased frequency and extent of prescribed fire decreased the likelihood of aboveground carbon combustion during wildfire events. However, at the landscape scale, prescribed fire did not decrease the projected severity and extent of wildfire, even when large increases (up to 10× the current levels) of prescribed fire were simulated. Prescribed fire was most effective at reducing wildfire severity under a climate change scenario with increased temperature and precipitation and on sites with north‐facing aspects and slopes greater than 30°. Our findings suggest that placement matters more than frequency and extent to estimate the effects of prescribed fire, and that prescribed fire alone would not be sufficient to reduce the risk of wildfire and promote carbon sequestration at regional scales in the Siskiyou Mountains. To improve feasibility, we propose targeting areas of high concern or value to decrease the risk of high‐severity fire and contribute to meeting climate mitigation and adaptation goals. Our results support strategic and targeted landscape prioritization of fire treatments to reduce wildfire severity and increase the pace and scale of forest restoration in areas of social and ecological importance, highlighting the challenges of using prescribed fire to lower wildfire risk.
Stratospheric aerosol injection (SAI) would potentially be effective in limiting global warming and preserving large‐scale temperature patterns; however, there are still gaps in understanding the impact of SAI on wildfire risk. In this study, extreme fire weather is assessed in an Earth system model experiment that deploys SAI beginning in 2035, targeting a global temperature increase of 1.5°C above pre‐industrial levels under a moderate warming scenario. After SAI deployment, increases in extreme fire weather event frequency from climate change are dampened over much of the globe, including the Mediterranean, northeast Brazil, and eastern Europe. However, SAI has little impact over the western Amazon and northern Australia and causes larger increases in extreme fire weather frequency in west central Africa relative to the moderate emissions scenario. Variations in the impacts of warming and SAI on moisture conditions on different time scales determine the spatiotemporal differences in extreme fire weather frequency changes, and are plausibly linked to changes in synoptic‐scale circulation. This study highlights that regional and spatial heterogeneities of SAI climate effects simulated in a model are amplified when assessing wildfire risk, and that these differences must be accounted for when quantifying the possible benefit of SAI.
more » « less- NSF-PAR ID:
- 10420715
- Publisher / Repository:
- DOI PREFIX: 10.1029
- Date Published:
- Journal Name:
- Earth's Future
- Volume:
- 11
- Issue:
- 6
- ISSN:
- 2328-4277
- Format(s):
- Medium: X
- Sponsoring Org:
- National Science Foundation
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