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Wildfire modifies the short- and long-term exchange of carbon between terrestrial ecosystems and the atmosphere, with impacts on ecosystem services such as carbon uptake. Dry western US forests historically experienced low-intensity, frequent fires, with patches across the landscape occupying different points in the fire-recovery trajectory. Contemporary perturbations, such as recent severe fires in California, could shift the historic stand-age distribution and impact the legacy of carbon uptake on the landscape. Here, we combine flux measurements of gross primary production (GPP) and chronosequence analysis using satellite remote sensing to investigate how the last century of fires in California impacted the dynamics of ecosystem carbon uptake on the fire-affected landscape. A GPP recovery trajectory curve of more than five thousand fires in forest ecosystems since 1919 indicated that fire reduced GPP by 157.4 ± 7.3 g C m − 2 y − 1 ( mean ± SE,   n = 1926 ) in the first year after fire, with average recovery to prefire conditions after ∼ 12 y. The largest fires in forested ecosystems reduced GPP by 393.8 ± 15.7 g C m − 2 y − 1 ( n = 401) and took more than two decades to recover. Recent increases in fire severity and recovery time have led to nearly 9.9 ± 3.5 MMT CO 2 (3-y rolling mean) in cumulative forgone carbon uptake due to the legacy of fires on the landscape, complicating the challenge of maintaining California’s natural and working lands as a net carbon sink. Understanding these changes is paramount to weighing the costs and benefits associated with fuels management and ecosystem management for climate change mitigation. 

Abstract Climate change is expected to increase drought intensity and frequency, which are commonly predicted will threaten the survival of forests. Most forest die‐off projections assume that recent tree mortality will not alter die‐off severity during subsequent droughts. We tested this assumption by comparing die‐off in semi‐arid conifer forest stands in California that were exposed to a single drought in 2012–2015 (“2ndDrought Only”) with forest stands that experienced drought in both 1999–2002 and 2012–2015 (“Both Droughts”). We quantified die‐off severity as a reduction in the satellite observed Normalized Difference Moisture Index, and cumulative moisture deficit as negative 4‐year Precipitation minus Evapotranspiration (4‐year Pr‐ET overdraft). Here we show that recent tree morality reduces die‐off severity in semi‐arid conifer forests exposed to subsequent drought. Stands in the2ndDrought Onlysample experienced severe die‐off associated with extreme 4‐year Pr‐ET overdraft in 2012–2015. Stands in theBoth Droughtssample experienced severe die‐off and 4‐year Pr‐ET overdraft in 1999–2002, but comparatively little 2012–2015 die‐off despite continued 4‐year Pr‐ET overdraft. We interpret this as a dampening effect, where prior tree mortality reduces forest die‐off severity during subsequent drought exposure. As forests continue to experience disturbances linked to climate change, dampening effects will impose a transient, and perhaps long‐term, constraint on the impact of repeated drought.