Extreme Fires | Research | IFIRE

Welcome to the Extreme Fires Portal

In recent years, wildland fires have become more widespread with significant ecological, social, and economic impact. Fewer than 5% of all fires account for the majority of area burned and costs of suppression. This interdisciplinary research project funded by the NASA-IDS program is entitled, "Quantifying the biogeoscientific and societal impacts of extreme wildland fires," from the regional to community scales in the US northern Rockies.

Several challenges and uncertainties exist related to the magnitude, duration, and drivers of extreme wildland fire events, and their wider impacts (temporal trajectories and spatial characteristics) and feedbacks with biogeoscientific and societal processes.

Challenge A: Defining Extreme Wildland Fire Events
Challenge B: Evaluating the Characteristics and Trajectories of Extreme Wildland Fire Events in Changing Physical and Political Climates
Challenge C: Enabling Future Predictions, Mitigation, and Lessons Learning

Map of potentially extreme fires

The 38 fires identified as potentially extreme based on the intersection of three or more fire criteria of high burn severity (B), size (S), duration (D) and wildland–urban interface (W) (Results presented in Lannom et al., 2013).

In recent years wildland fires have become more widespread with significant ecological, social, and economic impacts. Fewer than 5% of all fires account for the majority of area burned and the costs of fire suppression. We propose interdisciplinary research to quantifying the biogeoscientific (biophysical, biogeochemical, and biogeographical) and societal impacts of extreme wildland fires at community and regional scales in the US northern Rockies. The complex terrain in the northern Rockies offers steep environmental and social gradients to understand how and why landscapes change in response to extreme disturbances, as well as the social and environmental implications of those changes. The social gradient includes wildland interface community experience, while the environmental gradient covers aridlands, such as shrublands and grasslands, to mesic mixed conifer forests and subalpine ecosystems. Fires in these systems result in varying public and policy maker experiences and land management decisions in forested and rangeland ecosystems.

The goals of this research include:

Characterize the nature, magnitude, and distinguishing attributes of extreme wildland fire events;
Assess the full impact of the extreme wildland fire events (near-term and long-term) on both natural and human systems;
Characterize biophysical and social recovery processes and trajectories from selected extreme fire events; and
Understand how human actions to mitigate and/or recover from the impacts of past extreme wildland fire events have succeeded or failed, including the role that adaptive capacity and stakeholder knowledge play in effectively responding to fires.

The entire proposal for project work can be viewed here (pdf).

Objective: Development of a fire recovery chronosequence
Wells et al (in review) developed an alternative fire recovery chronosequence methodology that couples 100+ years of aerial photography data (1900-2000) with Landsat imagery (1984-2007) to create a continuous temporal series of vegetation mortality from fires for 346,266 ha. There is no other data set like this available that includes spatially explicit patches by burn severity class for such a large area and long time. Results: Quantifying how the proportion of area burned severely has changed over time is critical to understanding trends in the ecological effects of fire. Most assessments over large areas are limited to 30 years of satellite data, so we know little about multi-decadal trends in burn severity and patch size yet both are important to ecosystem function and vegetation recovery.
Objective: Assessing ecological recovery following extreme fires
Kemp et al (ongoing) are evaluating vegetation recovery at 183 sites through analyzing seedling densities following 21 individual extreme fires events within lower montane forests, focusing on understanding how environmental gradients (e.g., climate, elevation, heat loading, aspect) and post-fire legacies (e.g., burn severity, patch size, canopy cover) influence spatial patterns of tree regeneration in forests of the Northern Rockies. Results: Distance to the nearest live seed source has an overriding influence on seedling presence and abundance in burned areas. Beyond approximately 300 m from a live seed source, the probability of seedling recruitment drops below 20%. Of the four most common species found in sampled lower montane forest sites (Douglas-fir, ponderosa pine, lodgepole pine, and grand fir), only lodgepole pine does not exhibit this relationship between distance to seed trees and regeneration success. Our results highlight the overarching importance of nearby live seed sources for post-fire regeneration, across broad gradients in climate. The size of high burn severity patches, especially in extreme fire events, will strongly determine patterns of reestablishment.
Bowman-Prideaux et al (in prep) are evaluating how post-fire rehabilitation treatments alter the effects of fire frequency, intensity, or fire interval on plant community trajectories. Results: In a factorial analysis that included post-fire rehabilitation seeding application methods and the number of fires at a site, they found significant differences among post-fire rehabilitation seeding strategies: drill-seeding, drop-seeding, both, or none (P <0.001) (Appendix B, Figures 17 and 18). Three potential mechanisms for differences include seed density, historic seeding efforts, and bias in management decisions for determining seeding method.

Defining Extreme Wildfires from Social Science Research

The social science team completed a case study in year 3 consisting of in-depth interviews to validate and improve our understanding of the factors that affect people’s perceptions of what makes a wildfire ‘extreme.’ The 2012 Dahl fire near Roundup, MT was ignited by lightning and burned 22,045 acres from June 26 to July 3 in the mixed ponderosa pine sage grass prairie terrain. Initial estimates from the National Interagency Fire Center were that there were over $1.6 million in damages, including 73 homes and 150 other structures. The social science team conducted 51 in-person interviews in the summer of 2013 with residents, land and fire managers, emergency personnel, community leaders, real estate agents, insurance agents, and other stakeholders affected by the fire.

Results:

Interviewees consistently noted that climatic conditions (very dry, hot, and windy) led to a very fast moving and intense fire and steep, rugged terrain made it even more difficult for residents and fire fighters to protect their property and control the fire.
Although the duration of the fire was not substantial relative to other fires investigated in this research, the erratic fire behavior and perception of the lack of ability to control it led to the fire being perceived as an atypical event. This confirms our earlier findings that biophysical and fire characteristics contribute to the perceptions of fire extremity from the social perspective.
Access to personal property was a key source of conflict as fire managers prohibited people from re-entering their property during the fire. This conflict exacerbated the social impacts of the fire.
As other case studies have highlighted, efforts immediately following the fire to organize future mitigation efforts on private property (e.g., defensible space measures) appear to have been relatively short-term as there does not seem to be sustained efforts to reduce homeowner risk to future wildfires on a community-wide scale.

Evaluation of the characteristics and trajectories for extreme wildland fire events in changing physical and political climates – The ‘25 Fires’ Project

A multilevel modeling approach was implemented to survey people across 25 fires (representing a range of duration, acres burned, and fire severity measures) in the northwest U.S. that occurred in 2011 or 2012. This approach revealed which themes and factors relate to how people experience a wildfire (e.g., people’s perceptions of impacts and attitudes towards fire management), revealing strong consistency across various fires and contexts.

Initial Results:

Analysis of the questionnaire data demonstrate that while fires and the populations impacted by them may differ, there are many consistent relationships between wildfire impacts and resident well-being. This indicates that there is the potential for more uniform indicators for impact to people and broader social systems. The table below shows results from linear regression analysis highlighting statistically significant predictors that explained 48% of the variance in negative impacts to people’s well-being from the wildfire.
Multi-level modelling suggested that many of the significant predictors had varying intercepts but that the slopes were not significantly different across the fires between the predictor variables and the dependent variable. For the most part, the relationship between the variables was relatively stable across fires, however, we must also recognize and account for the difference in social and ecological contexts that influence fires and their impacts. This means understanding how local histories, development patterns, and social relationships surrounding fire in a given place, might affect the vulnerabilities that people have to fire.

Ongoing: Throughout the summer and fall of 2014, we will continue conducting statistical analysis by testing multilevel and linear regression models to predict perceptions of the extremity of a fire, as well as perceptions of landscape recovery, using the predictor variables mentioned above. We will also explore psychometric properties of some of our measures in more detail, which will contribute to future wildfire and other natural disaster research.

Paveglio graph 1

Paveglio graph 2

Assessing social perceptions of landscape recovery

The interviews in 2013 revealed that an individual’s relationship with the landscape and their understanding of fire as a natural part of the ecology of the area was important to how people reacted to the landscape impacts from the Dahl fire. These initial findings encouraged us to conduct follow-up interviews in the summer of 2014 to further investigate people’s perceptions of post-wildfire landscape recovery, a combination of Landsat satellite imagery, vegetation indices (NBR and NDVI), and high resolution imagery will be used to identify areas demonstrating different trends in post-fire vegetation recovery.

Results: Aesthetic impacts to the landscape are important to perceptions of the severity of wildfire impacts. Interviews about the Dahl fire confirmed this finding and led to a more in-depth and on-going research project that integrates biophysical and social sciences to better understand how people perceive landscape recovery after wildfire events. The goal is to improve management and communication responses before, during, and after a wildfire in efforts to reduce the negative impacts from an often drastically changed landscape.

Ongoing: These datasets will be presented to interviewees in 2014 to elicit greater understandings of the spatial and temporal aspects of how people perceive landscape recovery after ‘extreme’ fire events, how their connections to the landscape and their mental models of fire as part of the ecosystem affect their perceptions, and how their perceptions influence their attitudes towards wildfire management.

Defining Extreme Wildfires from Geospatial Data

The entire project team (social sciences, remote sensing scientists, and ecologists) worked together to explore whether potentially extreme wildland fire events could be determined through analyzing different geospatial metrics. This analysis has led to Lannom et al (2014, IJWF). In this study, a temporal series of Landsat imagery was acquired from 1984-2009 for all fires that occurred within the western United States. This temporal series was analyzed to identify both widespread fire years (i.e. years with significantly larger quantities of area burned) and individually extreme wildfires, using metrics based on fire size, percentage of area burned with high vegetation mortality, duration, and distance to the Wildland Urban Interface (WUI). Potentially extreme wildland fire events were identified using the cross-section of distributional statistics for each metric.

Results: An important result was recognition and agreement of the methodology used to characterize (A) “extreme fire years” and to characterize (B) “individual wildland fires as extreme”.

Product A: Method to identify “Extreme Disturbance Years”

In agreement with the work of Dillon et al (2011, Ecosphere), the project team within the Lannom et al (2014) paper used the Tukey’s 75^th percentile + 1.5 interquartile–range (IQR) rule to identify statistically significant “extreme fire years”. Importantly, this concept can be readily applied to evaluating “extreme years” of any disturbance from geospatial data acquired from NASA assets, e.g., “extreme hurricane years”, or “extreme flood years”.

Product B: Method to identify “Extreme Individual Disturbance Events”

The method presented in Lannom et al (2014) collates continuous distributions of various geospatial metrics related to biophysical and social impacts of fires. On the continuous data the 90^th, 95^th and 99^th percentiles were calculated and the fires identified. Fires that were present in these percentiles for 75% of the tests were identified as potentially extreme. This was done separately for the 90^th, 95^th, and 99^th.

Following re-analyses, 1988, 2000, 2006, and 2007 were identified as extreme fire years.
At the 90th percentile, less than 1.5% of all fires were identified as potentially extreme fires. At the more stringent 95th and 99th percentiles, this percentage reduced to less than 0.5% and 0.05% respectively.
38 fires were identified that intersected with at least three criteria at the 90th percentile, half of which occurred during the identified extreme fire years. Correlations between area burned and climatic measures (Palmer Drought Severity Index, temperature, Energy Release Component, Duff Moisture Code, and potential evapotranspiration) were observed. Results were presented at the 2013 AGU Fall Meeting and published in the International Journal of Wildland Fire.

The project team has also conducted and completed a series of projects to assess the utility of various geospatial, ecology, and social science metrics as indicators of extreme fires:

In Sparks et al (2014, IJWF) we explored the accuracy within the MTBS derived burned area products (these products are central to the time series analysis within this project)

Results: We demonstrate that the MTBS burned area product has high commission errors (4-16%) and if it is used to generate time series data of area burned, the burned area perimeters should be constrained by spectral index based classifications of burned and unburned surfaces. This work was also partially funded under award NNX11AF19G (Boschetti).

In Smith et al (2013, GRL) we demonstrate the role that fuel moisture content has on fire radiant energy (FRE) retrievals. This was in conjunction with NNX12AK31G (Falkowski).

Results: Results indicate a significant relationship: FRE per kilogram of fuel consumed =-5.32 WC+ 3.025 (were WC = water content) and imply that not taking into account fuel moisture variations in the assumed relationship between FRE and fuel consumed can lead to systematic biases. A similar relationship has been determined for another pine species and ongoing research in summer 2014 is evaluating peat fuels.

Product C: Method todetermine fuel moisture controls on fire radiative energy (FRE) retrievals

Birch et al (two parts completed, one ongoing) analyzed burn severity (inferred as tree mortality from Landsat using dNBR) and sub-orbital IR fire progression data to evaluate the relationship between vegetation mortality and effects of ‘extreme’ fires (Birch 2013, Birch et al 2014, ERL). Further, Birch (2013) and Birch et al (2014, in review) analyzed how topography, climate, vegetation, and weather properties influence burn severity during ‘extreme’ fires. Birch analyzed 42 large fires (128,348 – 282 ha) that burned in forests of central Idaho and western Montana from 2007-2011. These large fires all exceeded initial and subsequent fire suppression efforts, with each event growing to be a large fire that burned for several days to weeks.

Results: They found that daily area burned is a poor predictor of burn severity as the correlation is significant but weak, even for the very largest (95^th percentile) of Daily Area Burned (Birch 2013, Birch et al 2014). This suggests that other factors influence burn severity. They found that topography and vegetation were more important than climate and weather in influencing vegetation mortality (Birch 2013, Birch et al. in review).

Hicke et al (2013, ERL) documented the amount of carbon in trees killed by wildfires in the western US, and compared it with that killed by bark beetles and harvesting.

Results: Carbon in trees killed by wildfires during 1984-2010 was 146-285 Tg, representing 2.4-4.6% of the total carbon in trees in the western US, and was highest in northern California/southern Oregon, central Idaho, and northwest Wyoming (Appendix B, Figure 8).

Product D: Methodology to construct forest-fire chronosequence from Landsat imagery.

In year 3 we made substantial progress on exploring the utility of different temporal series data to characterize trajectories. Data sets included Landsat, sub-orbital aerial photography, and agency records of burned area. Highlights in development of the fire recovery chronosequence include:

Lannom et al (in review) presents a proof of concept of how extended temporal series of Landsat imagery can be used to create a fire recovery chronosequence.

Results: It is possible to assemble a 100 year post-fire recovery chronosequence for forested systems within the project area. Ongoing research in preparation for Remote Sensing of Environment includes incorporating USDA Forest Service Forest Inventory Analysis data for these areas to link in situ recovery with spectral recovery.

Strand et al (ongoing) evaluated the chronosequence methodology for use in rangeland fires.

Result: They concluded that too much variation exists to reliably use the method in these fires. Chronosequences in rangelands are much more difficult to identify than in forests because of the seasonal variability and differences between ecological sites. Due to these issues they are changing direction and are now looking at quantifying change based on ecological site and pre-fire vegetation cover levels.

Lannom et al 2014 figure 2

Lannom et al 2014 figure 1

Hicke et al 2013 figure

Lannom et al 2014 figure 3

Project Meetings

The PI and members of the project team have met regularly this project year to coordinate tasks. A project meeting took place October 2012 at the University of Idaho campus in Moscow, Idaho. The Project PI, Alistair Smith, project co-PIs, collaborators, post-docs and graduate students were in attendance.

Conference Sessions Organized

In December 2012, PI Smith and CoI Newingham convened a Biogeosciences session at the America Geophysical Union’s Fall Meeting on “Disturbance Impacts and Responses.”
In December 2013, PI Smith and David Reed convened a Biogeosciences session at the America Geophysical Union’s Fall Meeting on “Vulnerability, Disturbances, Impacts, and Responses.” Eight posters representing work completed by the project team were presented.
Most of the NASA project team was involved in hosting a series of climate-extension workshops across Idaho and Montana on a complementary NSF IGERT project.

Publications

Lannom, K.O^., Tinkham, W.T., Smith, A.M.S., Abatzoglou, J., Newingham, B.A., Hall, T.E., Morgan P., Strand E.K., Paveglio, T.B.,Anderson, J.W, and Sparks A.M. 2014. Defining extreme wildland fires using geospatial data. International Journal of Wildland Fire, 23, 322-377, doi: 10.1071/WF13065.

We recently completed a synthesis study, in press in Remote Sensing of Environment that reviews literature that has applied remote sensing imagery to characterize vegetation vulnerability (retrospectively and prospectively). The synthesis included a review of how vegetation vulnerability has been characterized by geospatial data in a wide array of natural (not managed) terrestrial ecosystems, including temperate forests, tropical forests, boreal forests, semi-arid lands, coastal areas, and the arctic. The synthesis highlights key studies that have quantitatively characterized vulnerability in a predictive manner and then presents guidelines on how such spatial data layers can be used to construct spatially explicit decision support tools that can predict vegetation vulnerability under future scenarios (i.e. early warning systems).

Smith, A.M.S., Kolden, C.A., Tinkham, W.T., Talhelm, A., Marshall, J.D., Hudak, A.T., Boschetti, L., Falkowski, M.J., Greenberg, J.A., Anderson, J.W., Kliskey, A., Alessa, L., Keefe, R.F., and Gosz, J. 2014. Remote Sensing the Vulnerability of Vegetation in Natural Terrestrial Ecosystems. Remote Sensing of Environment, doi: 10.1016/j.rse.2014.03.038.

Presentations

Birch, Donovan S., Penelope Morgan, Crystal A. Kolden, John T. Abatzoglou, Gregory K. Dillon, Andrew T. Hudak, and Alistair M.S. Smith. 2014. Daily Fire Weather and Environmental Factors Influencing Burn Severity for 42 Forest Fires of Central Idaho and Western Montana, 2005-2011. Poster presentation, Large Wildland Fires: Social, Political & Ecological Effects, University of Montana, Missoula, USA. May 19-23, 2014.
Birch, Donovan S., Penelope Morgan, Crystal A. Kolden, John T. Abatzoglou, Gregory K. Dillon, Andrew T. Hudak, and Alistair M.S. Smith. 2014. Daily Fire Weather and Environmental Factors Influencing Burn Severity for 42 Forest Fires of Central Idaho and Western Montana, 2005-2011. Poster Video presentation for Large Wildland Fires: Social, Political & Ecological Effects, University of Montana, Missoula, USA. May 19-23, 2014. Available online: https://www.dropbox.com/s/y3799dsgubsmz8t/AFE_Movie_Birch.mp4
Birch, Donovan S., Penelope Morgan, Crystal A. Kolden, John T. Abatzoglou, Gregory K. Dillon, Andrew T. Hudak, and Alistair M.S. Smith. 2013. Daily Fire Weather and Environmental Factors Influencing Burn Severity for 42 Forest Fires of Central Idaho and Western Montana, 2005-2011. Poster presentation, American Geophysical Union, December, 2013.
Lannom, K.O., Tinkham, W.T., Smith, A.M.S., Abatzoglou, J.T., Newingham, B.A., Hall, T.E., Morgan, P., Strand, E.K., Paveglio, T.B., Anderson, J.W. and Sparks, A.M. “Defining extreme wildland fires using geospatial and ancillary metrics”, Abstract B13I-0623, presented at 2013 Fall Meeting, AGU, San Francisco, Calif., 7-13 Dec.
Morgan, P., Birch, D., Kolden, C.A. and Smith, A.M.S. “Do Large Fire Runs Result in More Severe Fires?”, Abstract B13I-0633, presented at 2013 Fall Meeting, AGU, San Francisco, Calif., 7-13 Dec.
Birch, Donovan S., Penelope Morgan, Alistair M.S. Smith Andrew T. Hudak Crystal A. Kolden, Gregory K. Dillon. 2012. Burn severity and daily areas burned on three large, multiday wildfires across central Idaho and western Montana, 2005 to 2007. Poster presentation, Society of American Foresters, National Convention, October 2012.
Smith A.M.S., “Remote sensing of fire intensity and severity” Invited Presentation, South Dakota State University, October 2012.
Sparks, A, Smith, A.M.S., Tinkham, W.T., and Yokelson, R.J., "Understanding how seasonality and shifts in species composition impact emission estimates in semi-arid ecosystems", Abstract B31A-0375, presented at 2012 Fall Meeting, AGU, San Francisco, Calif., 3-7 Dec.
Hall, T.E., Kooistra, C.M., Paveglio, T., Gress, S. and Smith A.M.S. “Social and Biophysical Predictors of Public Perceptions of Extreme Fires” Abstract B13I-0627, presented at 2013 Fall Meeting, AGU, San Francisco, Calif., 7-13 Dec.
Argona, A.K., Sparks, A.M.,Tinkham, W.T., Smith, A.M.S., Boschetti, L. Newingham, B.A. and Lannom, K.O. “Preliminary assessment of the Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity burned area accuracy for shrub-steppe wildfires”, Abstract B13I-0629, presented at 2013 Fall Meeting, AGU, San Francisco, Calif., 7-13 Dec
Morgan, P. 2014. Invited. Socio-Economic, Political and Ecological Impacts of Large Wildland Fires. Panel with Dan Bailey, Penny Morgan, and Matthew Thompson. Invited presentation. Large Wildland Fires: Social, Political & Ecological Effects, University of Montana, Missoula, USA. May 19-23, 2014.
Kooistra, C., Hall, T.E., Paveglio, T., & Strand, E. (2014). Post-Wildfire Landscape recovery: Perspectives from remotely sensed images and social science data. Large Wildfire Conference, Association of Fire Ecology and International Association of Wildland Fire. Missoula, MT.
Paveglio, T., Kooistra, C., Hall, T.E., & Pickering, T. (2014). Understanding the effect of large wildfires on residents’ well-being: What factors influence wildfire impact? Large Wildfire Conference, Association of Fire Ecology and International Association of Wildland Fire. Missoula, MT.
Kooistra, C. (2014). Spatial and Temporal Aspects of People’s Perceptions of Post-Wildfire Landscape Change. Western Forestry Graduate Research Symposium, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR.
Morgan, P. 2014. Invited. Fire and Climate Change, Boise Public Library, Boise, ID, April 10, 2014.
Wells, Ashley A., Penelope Morgan, Alistair M.S. Smith, Andrew T. Hudak, Jeffrey A. Hicke. 2014. Burn severity and vegetation response in the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness Area, 1900-2007. Poster presented at Large Wildland Fires: Social, Political & Ecological Effects. University of Montana, Missoula, USA. May 19-23, 2014.
Wells, Ashley A., Penelope Morgan, Alistair M.S. Smith, Andrew T. Hudak, Jeffrey A. Hicke. 2013. Burn severity and vegetation response in the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness Area, 1900-2007. Poster presentation, American Geophysical Union, December, 2013.
Lannom, K.O., Smith, A.M.S., Tinkham, W.T., Strand, E.K. and Satterberg, K. "Development of Extreme Wildland Fire Recovery Chronosequences for the Northern Rockies, U.S.", Abstract B31A-0397, presented at 2012 Fall Meeting, AGU, San Francisco, Calif., 3-7 Dec.
Carroll, M., Paveglio, T., & Kallman, D. (2013). Exploring local perceptions and attributions of “extreme” wildfire impacts in Rural Montana. American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting. San Fran., CA.
Kooistra, C., Hall, T.E., Paveglio, T., Carroll, M., and Smith, A.M. (2013). Perceptions of post-wildfire landscape change and recovery. American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting. San Fran., CA.
Hall, T.E., Kooistra, C., Paveglio, T., Gress, S., Smith, A.M. (2013). Social and Biophysical Predictors of Public Perceptions of Extreme Fires. American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting. San Fran., CA.
Sparks, A.M., Yokelson, R.J., Smith, A.M.S., Marshall, J.D. and Tinkham, W.T. “Understanding how seasonality and shifts in species composition impact emission estimates in semi-arid ecosystems”, Abstract A31C-0085, presented at 2013 Fall Meeting, AGU, San Francisco, Calif., 7-13 Dec.
Carroll, M., Paveglio, T., & Hall, T.E. (2013). Firewise for Whom? Formal and informal means of adapting to the risk of wildland fire. International Association for Society and Natural Resources’ (IASNR) International Symposium for Society and Resource Management (ISSMR). Estes Park, CO.
Hicke, J. A., “The Role of Biotic Disturbance Agents in Carbon-Climate Connections”, National Center for Atmospheric Research Advanced Study Program Summer Colloquium on Carbon-Climate Connections in the Earth System, 6-10 August 2013, Boulder, CO.
Hicke, J. A., A. J. H. Meddens, C. D. Allen, and S. Edburg, “Impacts of Insects on Western U.S. Forests,” North American Carbon Program Fourth All-Investigator’s Meeting, 4-7 February 2013, Albuquerque, NM.
Hicke, J. A., A. J. H. Meddens, and C. D. Allen, “Extreme disturbance events and the carbon cycle: Bark beetle outbreaks and wildfire in the western US,” North American Carbon Program Fourth All-Investigator’s Meeting, 4-7 February 2013, Albuquerque, NM.
Wells, Ashley A., Penelope Morgan, Alistair M.S. Smith, Andrew T. Hudak, Jeffrey A. Hicke. 2012. Burn severity and vegetation response in the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness Area, 1900-2007. Poster presentation, Society of American Foresters, National Convention, October 2012. Award Outstanding Student Poster
Wells, Ashley A., Penelope Morgan, Alistair M.S. Smith, Andrew T. Hudak, Jeffrey A. Hicke. 2012. Burn severity and vegetation response in the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness Area, 1900-2007. Poster presentation, Association for Fire Ecology, 5th International Fire Ecology and Management Congress: Uniting Research, Education, and Management, December 3-7, 2012. (Award Outstanding Student Poster)
Kemp, K.B., P.E. Higuera, and P. Morgan. (2014, May). Post-fire tree recruitment in the U.S. Northern Rockies: The influence of seed source proximity and patch size. Invited Oral Presentation at the International Association of Wildland Fire and Association for Fire Ecology Large Wildfires Conference; Missoula, MT.
Kemp, K.B., P.E. Higuera, and P. Morgan. (2014, August). Post-fire tree recruitment in the U.S. Northern Rockies: The influence of seed source proximity and environmental conditions. Oral Presentation at the Ecological Society of America Conference; Sacramento, CA.

Data

Lannom, K.O., Tinkham, W.T., Smith, A.M.S., Abatzoglou, J., Newingham, B.A., Hall, T.E., Morgan, P., Strand, E.K., Paveglio, T.B., Anderson, J.W., and Sparks, A.M. 2014. Defining extreme wildland fires using geospatial and ancillary metrics. International Journal of Wildland Fire 23(3):322-337. http://dx.doi.org/10.1071/WF13065.

Spreadsheet data of Burn Severity, Fire Size, Duration, and Intersection with WUI
WUI Data (redirected to the University of Wisconsin-Madison's SILVIS Lab for data download)
GIS Shapefile of the fire polygons and attribute data used for metrics analysis
MTBS Burn Severity Data (ArcGIS GRID format; you will need the shapefile of polygons to identify GRIDs by fire ID)

Birch, Donovan S, Penelope Morgan, Crystal A Kolden, Andrew T Hudak, and Alistair M S Smith. In press. Is proportion burned severely related to daily area burned? Environmental Research Letters.

This data will be made available as soon as the paper is published. Please check back soon!

Birch, Donovan S., Penelope Morgan, Crystal A. Kolden, John T. Abatzoglou, Gregory K. Dillon, Andrew T. Hudak, and Alistair M.S. Smith. In preparation. Daily weather and other factors influencing burn severity in central Idaho and western Montana, 2005-2007 and 2011. To be submitted in June 2014 to Ecosphere.

This data will be made available as soon as the paper is published. Please check back soon!

Wells, Ashley, Penelope Morgan, Andrew T. Hudak, and Scott Baggett. In progress. Multidecadal trends in burn severity and patch size in the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness Area, 1900-2007. To be submitted in June 2014 to Forest Ecology and Management.

This data will be made available as soon as the paper is published. Please check back soon!

Bowman-Prideaus, C. and Newingham, B. In progress. Post-Fire Rehabilitation Influences Shrubland Fire Return Intervals. To be submitted in Summer 2014 to Restoration Ecology.

This data will be made available as soon as the paper is published. Please check back soon!

Questions? Please contact Karen Lannom.

Extreme Fires Portal