Toward integrated fire management to promote ecosystem resilience

Abstract

•Management interventions for addressing invading annual grasses and encroaching conifers and their effects on fire dynamics in the sagebrush ecosystem are largely reactive.•Reactive management limits tools for promoting long-term ecosystem resilience on a fire-prone landscape.•We propose an integrated fire management approach in which all management activities before, during, and after wildfire are synergistic and improve long-term ecosystem response to fire.•Harney County Wildfire Collaborative is adapting the Potential Operational Delineations (PODs) framework to improve fire outcomes and promote values at risk in the Stinkingwater Mountains pilot project area.•The PODs framework serves to promote a broader geographic strategy for addressing the underlying causes of frequent and severe wildfires in the sagebrush ecosystem.