Fire Extent Research Articles

A Model-Based Framework to Evaluate Alternative Wildfire Suppression Strategies

The complexity and demands of wildland firefighting in the western U.S. have increased over recent decades due to factors including the expansion of the wildland-urban interface, lengthening fire seasons associated with climate change, and changes in vegetation due to past fire suppression and timber harvest. In light of these changes, the use of more wildland fire on the landscape could reduce fuels and form barriers to the spread of future fires while performing forest restoration in some areas. However, the risks, costs and benefits of changing fire response strategy have not been quantified. Here, we identify gaps regarding the ability to simulate alternative wildfire suppression strategies, due to a number of factors including limited data collected on fireline construction, as well as synergies between firefighting resources and resource effectiveness. We present a fire management continuum: at one end lies full suppression of all fires under all circumstances, and at the opposite end lies no suppression of any fires regardless of location or time in season, with a wide array of managed fire options falling in between. Next, we demonstrate the proof-of-concept using a stochastic fire simulation model, FSim, to simulate two alternative fire suppression strategies close to opposite ends of this continuum for the Sierra National Forest of California: (1) business-as-usual, which equates to nearly full fire suppression; and (2) full suppression of human-caused fires and no suppression actions on lightning-caused fires. Results indicate that fire management strategy can substantially affect the number of large fires and landscape burn probabilities, both of which were shown to increase under the second scenario. However, temporal feedbacks are expected to play an important role: we show that increases in burned area substantially limit ignition potential and the extent of subsequent fires within the first five to ten years, especially under the second scenario. While subject to current data gaps and limitations in fire modeling, the methodology presented here can be used to simulate a number of alternative fire suppression strategies, including decisions to suppress or not suppress fires based on location, time of season or other factors. This method also provides basic inputs needed to estimate risks, costs and benefits of various alternative suppression strategies in future work. In future work, uncertainties resulting from current limitations in knowledge can be addressed using techniques such as scenario planning in order to provide land managers with a set of possible fire outcomes.

A comparison and validation of satellite-derived fire severity mapping techniques in fire prone north Australian savannas: Extreme fires and tree stem mortality

Severe fires in tropical savanna systems are recognised as incurring significant impacts on a variety of ecological attributes, including woody vegetation structure and greenhouse gas emissions. However, knowledge of the frequency and extent of severe fires is restricted given challenges associated with the development of reliable remotely sensed mapping procedures. This study takes advantage of three wildfires, 900–5300km2 in extent, containing very severely affected areas, occurring in semi-evergreen, eucalypt-dominated, tropical Australian savanna, which resulted in significant areas of complete canopy scorch, very significant tree stem mortality (24–55%), and associated loss of living above ground biomass (47–69%) at respective sites. Although increased map scale is generally considered to improve the reliability of fire severity mapping, our analysis found >90% agreement between Landsat and MODIS-derived burnt area mapping, and >80% for binary (severe vs. non-severe) fire severity mapping. Mapping of internal fire (unburnt) patchiness was enhanced with finer resolution Landsat imagery, but the much longer orbital return cycle precluded its use at two of the three sites given extended cloudy conditions. Application of an automated MODIS-derived fire severity mapping algorithm (overall reliability in 2015=75%) calibrated for generalised north Australian savanna conditions, suggests that 15% and 12% of Australia's 1.3Mkm2 tropical savannas region were burnt by severe fires in 2015 and 2016, respectively. The study illustrates the potential for MODIS-derived fire severity mapping, the impacts of very severe fires on stand structure, and ongoing challenges associated with deriving reliable fire severity mapping products in Australian savanna systems.

Soil organic layer combustion in boreal black spruce and jack pine stands of the Northwest Territories, Canada

Increased fire frequency, extent and severity are expected to strongly affect the structure and function of boreal forest ecosystems. In this study, we examined 213 plots in boreal forests dominated by black spruce (Picea mariana) or jack pine (Pinus banksiana) of the Northwest Territories, Canada, after an unprecedentedly large area burned in 2014. Large fire size is associated with high fire intensity and severity, which would manifest as areas with deep burning of the soil organic layer (SOL). Our primary objectives were to estimate burn depth in these fires and then to characterise landscapes vulnerable to deep burning throughout this region. Here we quantify burn depth in black spruce stands using the position of adventitious roots within the soil column, and in jack pine stands using measurements of burned and unburned SOL depths. Using these estimates, we then evaluate how burn depth and the proportion of SOL combusted varies among forest type, ecozone, plot-level moisture and stand density. Our results suggest that most of the SOL was combusted in jack pine stands regardless of plot moisture class, but that black spruce forests experience complete combustion of the SOL only in dry and moderately well-drained landscape positions. The models and calibrations we present in this study should allow future research to more accurately estimate burn depth in Canadian boreal forests.

Simulating the effectiveness of prescribed burning at altering wildfire behaviour in Tasmania, Australia

Prescribed burning is a widely accepted wildfire hazard reduction technique; however, knowledge of its effectiveness remains limited. To address this, we employ simulations of a widely used fire behaviour model across the ecologically diverse Australian island state of Tasmania. We simulate three broad scenarios: (1) no fuel treatment, (2) a maximal treatment, with the most possible prescribed burning within ecological constraints, and (3) 12 hypothetically more implementable state-wide prescribed-burning plans. In all simulations, we standardised fire-weather inputs to represent regionally typical dangerous fire-weather conditions. Statistical modelling showed that an unrealistically large maximal treatment scenario could reduce fire intensity in three flammable vegetation types, and reduce fire probability in almost every vegetation type. However, leverage analysis of the 12 more-realistic implementable plans indicated that such prescribed burning would have only a minimal effect, if any, on fire extent and that none of these prescribed-burning plans substantially reduced fire intensity. The study highlights that prescribed burning can theoretically mitigate wildfire, but that an unrealistically large area would need to be treated to affect fire behaviour across the island. Rather, optimisation of prescribed burning requires careful landscape design at the local scale. Such designs should be based on improved fire behaviour modelling, empirical measurement of fuels and analysis of actual wildfires.

Greater Temperature and Precipitation Extremes Intensify Western U.S. Droughts, Wildfire Severity, and Sierra Nevada Tree Mortality

AbstractExtensive drought in the western United States (WUS) during the twenty-first century and associated wildfire and tree mortality incidence has highlighted the potential for greater area of severity within widespread droughts. To place recent WUS droughts into a historical context, the authors analyzed gridded daily climate (temperature, precipitation, and climatic water deficit) data to identify and characterize the spatiotemporal evolution of the largest WUS droughts of the last 100 years, with an emphasis on severe cores within drought extents. Cores of droughts during the last 15 years (2000–02 and 2012–14) covered a greater area than in earlier droughts, driven by greater temperature and precipitation extremes. Comparing fire extent and severity before, during, and after drought events using the monitoring trends in burn severity dataset (1984–2014), the authors found fire size and high-severity burn extent were greater during droughts than before or after. Similarly, recent Sierra Nevada forest mortality was greatest in cores immediately after the drought. Climate simulations anticipate greater extremes in temperature and precipitation in a warming world; droughts and related impacts of the last 15 years may presage the effects of these extremes.

Conflicting Perspectives on Spotted Owls, Wildfire, and Forest Restoration

Evidence of increasing fire extent and severity in the western US in recent decades has raised concern over the effects of fire on threatened species such as the spotted owl (Strix occidentalis Xantus de Vesey), which nests in forests with large trees and high canopy cover that are vulnerable to high-severity wildfire. A dichotomy of views exists on the impact of high-severity wildfire on the spotted owl. One view holds that reduction in the extent of forests with large trees and high canopy cover due to high-severity wildfire is a primary threat to spotted owls, and that fuels reduction treatments that successfully reduce the risk of high-severity wildfire can aid in sustaining desired conditions for this owl. A conflicting view maintains that high-severity wildfire was relatively common in many forest types occupied by spotted owls and does not pose an immediate threat to spotted owls, and that fuels reduction treatments are misguided because they degrade owl habitat and do not reduce the extent of high-severity fire. Based on the existing literature, we argue that considerable uncertainty remains regarding the response of spotted owls to high-severity wildfire, especially over longer time frames and across the three subspecies (California [Strix occidentalis occidentalis Xantus de Vesey], Mexican [S. o. lucida Nelson], and northern [S. o. caurina Merriam]) of spotted owls. The considerable extent of high-severity wildfire within the ranges of these subspecies over recent years, coupled with the trend toward increasing extent and severity of megafires, suggests that the cumulative effects of these fires could be significant throughout the range of this owl. Forest restoration or fuels reduction treatments may aid in reducing habitat loss, particularly when strategically located to optimize reduction of fire risk, but also may locally impact spotted owl habitat. We advocate further evaluation of both the impacts of such treatments to spotted owls and the effectiveness of such treatments in mitigating fire behavior. We also advocate wider use of managed fire to reduce risk of high-severity wildfire. Finally, given the paucity of long-term data on this topic, we recommend targeted research aimed at a decade or longer time periods after fires. These studies should include measures of demographic performance, and should be designed to elucidate differences in those metrics related to landscape pattern, forest type, and subspecies ecology. Such information would inform the debate over how to integrate the conservation of spotted owls and their habitat with fuels reduction and forest restoration objectives.

Linkages Among Climate, Fire, and Thermoerosion in Alaskan Tundra Over the Past Three Millennia

AbstractAmplified Arctic warming may facilitate novel tundra disturbance regimes, as suggested by recent increases in the rate and extent of thermoerosion and fires in some tundra areas. Thermoerosion and wildfire can exacerbate warming by releasing large permafrost carbon stocks, and interactions between disturbance regimes can lead to complex ecosystem feedbacks. We conducted geochemical and charcoal analyses of lake sediments from an Alaskan lake to identify thermoerosion and fire events over the past 3,000 years. Thermoerosion was inferred from lake sediments in the context of modern soil data from retrogressive thaw slumps (RTS). Magnetic susceptibility (MS), Ca:K, and Ca:Sr increased with depth in modern RTS soils and were higher on recently exposed than older slump surfaces. Peaks in bulk density, % CaCO3, Ca:K, Ca:Sr, and MS values in the sediments suggest at least 18 thermoerosion events in the Loon Lake watershed over the past 3,000 years. Charcoal analysis identifies 22 fires over the same period at this site. Temporal variability in these records suggests climate‐driven responses of both thermoerosion and fire disturbance regimes, with fewer RTS episodes and fire events during the Little Ice Age than the Medieval Climate Anomaly. Moreover, RTS activity lagged behind catchment fires by 20–30 years (>90% confidence interval), implying that fires facilitated thermoerosion on decadal time scales, possibly because of prolonged active‐layer deepening following fire and postfire proliferation of insulative shrub cover. These results highlight the potential for complex interactions between climate, vegetation, and tundra disturbance in response to ongoing warming.

Design Experiences in Minimalistic Flying Sensor Node Platform through SensorFly

Indoor emergency response situations, such as urban fire, are characterized by dangerous constantly changing operating environments with little access to situational information for first responders. In situ information about the conditions, such as the extent and evolution of an indoor fire, can augment rescue efforts and reduce risk to emergency personnel. Static sensor networks that are pre-deployed or manually deployed have been proposed but are less practical due to need for large infrastructure, lack of adaptivity, and limited coverage. Controlled-mobility in sensor networks, that is, the capability of nodes to move as per network needs can provide the desired autonomy to overcome these limitations. In this article, we present SensorFly, a controlled-mobile aerial sensor network platform for indoor emergency response application. The miniature, low-cost sensor platform has capabilities to self deploy, achieve three-dimensional sensing, and adapt to node and network disruptions in harsh environments. We describe hardware design trade-offs, the software architecture, and the implementation that enables limited-capability nodes to collectively achieve application goals. Through the indoor fire monitoring application scenario, we validate that the platform can achieve coverage and sensing accuracy that matches or exceeds static sensor networks and provide higher adaptability and autonomy.

Spatiotemporal characteristics of wildfire frequency and relative area burned in larch-dominated forests of Central Siberia

Wildfire frequency, relative area burned, and fire return intervals (FRI) have been studied in larchdominated forests along the transect from the southern (45° N) to the northern (73° N) distribution limits of larch stands based on analysis of satellite imagery (NOAA/AVHRR, Terra/MODIS; 1996–2015) and collection of tree cross cuts with fire scars. A significant increasing trend in fire extent (R2 = 0.50, p 55° N). The length of FRI increases from 80 years at 62° N to ~200 years at the Arctic Circle and reaches ~300 years near the northern limit of larch stands, showing a significant inverse correlation with the length of fire season (r =–0.69). In turn, the length of fire season, area burned and FRI are closely correlated with latitudinal variation in solar irradiance (r = 0.97, 0.81, and –0.95, respectively).

Do spatially homogenising and heterogenising processes affect transitions between alternative stable states?

Large-scale sudden transitions in ecosystems are expected as result of changing global climate or land use. Current theory predicts such sudden transitions especially to occur in spatially homogeneous ecosystems, whereas transitions in spatially heterogeneous systems will be more gradual. The spatial heterogeneity of ecosystems is determined as result of opposing spatial processes that are either increasing or decreasing heterogeneity. Hence, the relative strength of these opposing processes is expected to determine how sensitive the system is to transitions, which has not been explored to date. In our study, fire, as a spatially heterogenising process, and plant dispersion, as a spatially homogenising process, in tropical savannas were modelled to analyse how these processes affect the occurrence of sudden transitions from grass dominance to tree dominance. Savannas are expected to change due to precipitation or land use changes towards either tree dominance or grass dominance. We found that high rates of grass dispersion can create homogeneous grass patches, but only when the spatial extent of fire is limited to small patches that are spread across the landscape. When fires occur in larger patches, a heterogeneous pattern is generated. In spatially heterogeneous savannas, we found a more gradual responses to increasing grazing pressure compared to the sudden transitions when savannas are spatially homogeneous. The most sudden transitions were found in near-homogeneous grass distributions where the interaction between grazing, grass dispersion and fire led to a few homogeneous patches. Within these homogeneous patches, transitions were complete and sudden. We conclude that when spatially heterogenising processes are stronger than spatially homogenising processes, heterogeneous systems are created. In these systems large-scale sudden transitions are less likely to occur, because transitions at smaller scales are averaged over space. We discuss how this has implications for responses of savannas to climatic and land use change.

Can a growth model be used to describe forest carbon and water balance after fuel reduction burning in temperate forests?

Empirical evidence from Australia shows that fuel reduction burning significantly reduces the incidence and extent of unplanned fires. However, the integration of environmental values into fire management operations is not yet well-defined and requires further research and development.WAVES, a plant growth model that incorporates Soil-Vegetation-Atmosphere Transfer, was used to simulate the hydrological and ecological effects of three fuel management scenarios on a forest ecosystem. WAVES was applied using inputs from a set of forest plots for one year after three potential scenarios: (1) all litter removed, (2) all litter and 50% of the understorey removed, (3) all litter and understorey removed. Modelled outputs were compared with sites modelled with no-fuel reduction treatment (Unburnt).The key change between unburnt and fuel reduced forests was a significant increase in soil moisture after fire. Predictions of the recovery of aboveground carbon as plant biomass were driven by model structure and thus variability in available light and soil moisture at a local scale. Similarly, effects of fuel reduction burning on water processes were mainly due to changes in vegetation interception capacity (i.e. regrowth) and soil evaporation. Predicted effects of fuel reduction burning on total evapotranspiration (ET) – the major component of water balance – were marginal and not significant, even though a considerable proportion of ET had effectively been transferred from understorey to overstorey. In common with many plant growth models, outputs from WAVES are dictated by the assumption that overstorey trees continue to grow irrespective of their age or stage of maturity. Large areas of eucalypt forests and woodlands in SE Australia are well beyond their aggrading phase and are instead over-mature. The ability of these forests to rapidly respond to greater availability of water remains uncertain.

Changes in soil organic carbon after burning in a forest-savanna edge

Soils are one of the largest terrestrial pools of carbon, yet there is still little understanding of spatial variability for ecosystems in the tropics. Fire plays an important role in neotropical savannas ecosystems and significantly contribute to global greenhouse gas (GHG) fluxes. Nevertheless the impacts of burning on soil carbon is still uncertain in Latin America. We compared soil organic carbon (SOC) in the first 20 cm depth in savannas in pre and post fire conditions along a forests-savanna edge typically present in these landscapes of the northern South America. We established 8 transects of 20 m longitude along the border with 1m2 plots sampled every 4 m. SOC pre-disturbance was on average 1.794 (±SE 0,043) and the minimum value found (1.08%) was registered 6 months after the burning. Our results show that both the influence of the distance to the edge and the time of burning affect negatively the SOC and also there is a significant interaction between both variables. Our results provide improved estimates of the effect of fire on soil carbon stocks and its highly dynamic nature . We believe these finding will be a step to help better estimate GHG in this type of heterogeneous landscapes. Further it provides a tool for understanding C dynamics under a climate change context with predicted increased fire frequency, extent and severity.

Historic global biomass burning emissions for CMIP6 (BB4CMIP) based on merging satellite observations with proxies and fire models (1750–2015)

Abstract. Fires have influenced atmospheric composition and climate since the rise of vascular plants, and satellite data have shown the overall global extent of fires. Our knowledge of historic fire emissions has progressively improved over the past decades due mostly to the development of new proxies and the improvement of fire models. Currently, there is a suite of proxies including sedimentary charcoal records, measurements of fire-emitted trace gases and black carbon stored in ice and firn, and visibility observations. These proxies provide opportunities to extrapolate emission estimates back in time based on satellite data starting in 1997, but each proxy has strengths and weaknesses regarding, for example, the spatial and temporal extents over which they are representative. We developed a new historic biomass burning emissions dataset starting in 1750 that merges the satellite record with several existing proxies and uses the average of six models from the Fire Model Intercomparison Project (FireMIP) protocol to estimate emissions when the available proxies had limited coverage. According to our approach, global biomass burning emissions were relatively constant, with 10-year averages varying between 1.8 and 2.3 Pg C yr−1. Carbon emissions increased only slightly over the full time period and peaked during the 1990s after which they decreased gradually. There is substantial uncertainty in these estimates, and patterns varied depending on choices regarding data representation, especially on regional scales. The observed pattern in fire carbon emissions is for a large part driven by African fires, which accounted for 58 % of global fire carbon emissions. African fire emissions declined since about 1950 due to conversion of savanna to cropland, and this decrease is partially compensated for by increasing emissions in deforestation zones of South America and Asia. These global fire emission estimates are mostly suited for global analyses and will be used in the Coupled Model Intercomparison Project Phase 6 (CMIP6) simulations.

Fire weather and likelihood: characterizing climate space for fire occurrence and extent in Puerto Rico

Assessing the relationships between weather patterns and the likelihood of fire occurrence in the Caribbean has not been as central to climate change research as in temperate regions, due in part to the smaller extent of individual fires. However, the cumulative effect of small frequent fires can shape large landscapes, and fire-prone ecosystems are abundant in the tropics. Climate change has the potential to greatly expand fire-prone areas to moist and wet tropical forests and grasslands that have been traditionally less fire-prone, and to extend and create more temporal variability in fire seasons. We built a machine learning random forest classifier to analyze the relationship between climatic, socio-economic, and fire history data with fire occurrence and extent for the years 2003–2011 in Puerto Rico, nearly 35,000 fires. Using classifiers based on climate measurements alone, we found that the climate space is a reliable associate, if not a predictor, of fire occurrence and extent in this environment. We found a strong relationship between occurrence and a change from average weather conditions, and between extent and severity of weather conditions. The probability that the random forest classifiers will rank a positive example higher than a negative example is 0.8–0.89 in the classifiers for deciding if a fire occurs, and 0.64–0.69 in the classifiers for deciding if the fire is greater than 5 ha. Future climate projections of extreme seasons indicate increased potential for fire occurrence with larger extents.

Fire Response to Local Climate Variability: Huascar\xe1n National Park, Peru

In Huascarán National Park (HNP), Peru, grazing and anthropogenic burning have been interacting for decades with natural ignitions and climate variability to reconfigure the fire regimes of the vegetative communities. However, over the last few decades, human alterations to the region’s fire regime were perceived by resource managers to have led to an overall increase in fire occurrence and fire extent. Resource managers are now very concerned about the impacts of increasing anthropogenic fires in the National Park because these fires seem to disrupt ecological processes and tourism. To test these beliefs and examine the fire activity from 2002 to 2014, we used a time series of several different data products including the MODIS Terra and Aqua platforms (Active Fire and Burned Area) as well as local air temperature and precipitation data. The intra-annual distribution of fires in the HNP and its buffer zone (BZ) showed a consistent increase in the number of active fires and burned areas during the dry season (Peruvian winter). The active fire anomalies showed higher fire activity in the HNP over the period 2002 to 2014. However, burned area anomalies showed consistently higher fire activity in the BZ during the high fire years in 2003, 2005, 2010, and 2014. The spatial distribution of areas burned in the HNP and the BZ from 2002 to 2014 showed that most recurrent burning was inside the BZ, which is in compliance with the HNP’s policy but in contradiction with local resource managers’ perceptions. Although human activity may influence local fire dynamics, fire responses seemed to be mainly influenced by local climate oscillations. Our results suggest a clear fire response to local climate and, in particular, to precipitation variability. However, it appears that there was a low fire return interval for any given location and that the total area burned for a given year is relatively small. Therefore, small-scale fires created an appearance of larger fire impacts than actually occur within the HNP and its BZ. In this instance, fire perception and fire reality are not aligning and the new challenge for resource managers is how best to reconcile these two factors to more effectively manage the parklands.

Effects of climate on the size of wildfires in the Eucalyptus camaldulensis forests and the dry lands of the Riverina Bioregion, Australia

Wildfire affects ecosystem processes, threatens human lives and causes economic loss. In forested wetlands of inland Australia, a better understanding of fire regime pattern is required given the dense population of fire-sensitive species such as Eucalyptus camaldulensis (river red gum). This study aims to investigate wildfire characteristics and the effects and relative contributions of ambient weather and antecedent rainfall on fire size in forested wetlands and the surrounding dry lands of the Riverina bioregion, New South Wales, Australia. Fires burned entirely in forested wetlands (FEW), fires burned partly in forested wetlands (FPW) and fires that did not burn in forested wetlands (FNW), are progressively incorporated into statistical analyses, in order to explore the change of effects and contributions of factors as the fuel type changes from litter/grass to shrub/grass.Forested wetlands and dry lands experience summer and spring-summer fire regime, respectively. Higher cumulative rainfall conditions of the 6th, 13-14th and 17-18th months before fire drive a larger size of FEW, while a number of factors representing the cumulative rainfall after the 18th month before fire positively affect fire size when FPW and FNW are being modelled. A larger fire extent is also driven by severer ambient weather conditions. Forest Fire Danger Index (FFDI) is more powerful in explaining the size of FEW, while the daily temperature becomes more effective when FPW and FNW are gradually incorporated, which supports the use of respective factors as indicators of fire danger in the two diverse ecosystems.Antecedent rainfall factors are more powerful than ambient weather in explaining the size of FEW, while they become less important when the surrounding lands are incorporated. After a high level of rainfall and under similar ambient weather conditions, priority of fire risk management may be given to forested wetlands since fire size is more sensitive to biomass accumulation in forested wetlands than in the adjacent dry lands.

Spectroscopic Analysis for Mapping Wildland Fire Effects from Remotely Sensed Imagery.

1.5 to 4 million hectares of land burns in wildfire across the United States each year, contributing to post-fire erosion, ecosystem degradation and loss of wildlife habitat. Unmanned Aircraft Systems (UAS) and sensor miniaturization offer a new paradigm, providing an affordable, safe, and responsive on-demand tool for monitoring fire effects at a much finer spatial resolution than is possible with current technology. Using spectroscopic analysis of a variety of live as well as combusted vegetation samples to identify the spectral separability of vegetation classes, an optimal set of spectra was selected to be utilized by machine learning classifiers. This approach allows high resolution mapping of wildland fire severity and extent.

Declines revisited: Long-term recovery and spatial population dynamics of tailed frog larvae after wildfire

Drought has fueled an increased frequency and severity of large wildfires in many ecosystems. Despite an increase in research on wildfire effects on vertebrates, the vast majority of it has focused on short-term (<5years) effects and there is still little information on the time scale of population recovery for species that decline in abundance after fire. In 2003, a large wildfire in Montana (USA) burned the watersheds of four of eight streams that we sampled for larval Rocky Mountain tailed frogs (Ascaphus montanus) in 2001. Surveys during 2004–2005 revealed reduced abundance of larvae in burned streams relative to unburned streams, with greater declines associated with increased fire extent. Rocky Mountain tailed frogs have low vagility and have several unusual life-history traits that could slow population recovery, including an extended larval period (4years), delayed sexual maturity (6–8years), and low fecundity (<50eggs/year). To determine if abundance remained depressed since the 2003 wildfire, we repeated surveys during 2014–2015 and found relative abundance of larvae in burned and unburned streams had nearly converged to pre-fire conditions within two generations. The negative effects of burn extent on larval abundance weakened >58% within 12years after the fire. We also found moderate synchrony among populations in unburned streams and negative spatial autocorrelation among populations in burned streams. We suspect negative spatial autocorrelation among spatially-clustered burned streams reflected increased post-fire patchiness in resources and different rates of local recovery. Our results add to a growing body of work that suggests populations in intact ecosystems tend to be resilient to habitat changes caused by wildfire. Our results also provide important insights into recovery times of populations that have been negatively affected by severe wildfire.

Temporal transition analysis of coal mine fire of Jharia coalfield, India, using Landsat satellite imageries

Coal is dominant energy source of world at large and India in particular for several decades and expected to being continued for foreseeable future. However, fire in this fossils fuel is still a global catastrophe for the major coal-producing countries. There are several direct and cascading distress of coal mine fire has been encountered by environment, economy, safety and society. Without knowledge of actual status and extent of coal mine fire, any scope for its better managements may be futile. In India, the coal mine fire of well-known Jharia coalfield (JCF) has been continued since last ten decades and still spreading towards newer areas. The aim of this paper is to highlight the chronological net lateral spatial changes in coal mine fire areas of JCF using Landsat satellite thermal imageries. The mapping of coal mine fire area of JCF during 1988–2013 has been carried out with consecutive 5-year intervals. The lateral changes in surface and subsurface fire areas along with propagation towards new area have been studied. The study also included to evaluate changes of status and extent fire during this time span and effect of its management efforts. On the basis of aforementioned analysis, the study concludes a slow reducing trend in coal mine fire area during last 25 years.

Geospatial Assessment of Forest Fires in Jharkhand (India)

Background: The forests in India and worldwide are threatened by many factors, one among them being the increasing frequency of forest fires. It damages the forest ecosystem and the environment thus altering the global climate. A proper monitoring and understanding of forest fires both spatially and temporally would assist in management of forest and help in protecting the biodiversity and wildlife habitat. Satellite remote sensing and GIS help in visualizing the extent and damage of forest fire at various scales and time periods. Objectives: To analyze the incidences of forest fires in Jharkhand state of India. Forest fire hotspot district were identified and analyzed. Methods/Statistical Analysis: The forest fire point data from the year 2005 to 2016 was analyzed in GIS domain for Jharkhand. The Landsat-8 data was utilized to obtain the forest cover of 2015 for Paschim Singhbhum district. The 2km*2km grid was generated to evaluate each grid with reference to forest fire incidence. Findings: Analysis of the datasets revealed that highest forest fire district of Jharkhand state is Paschim Singhbhum, it retain 30% of total forest fire whereas it contain approximately 17 % of the state forest cover. The study reveals very high frequency of forest fire grids in Paschim Singhbhum district falls in north-west of Pansuan dam of Porhat forest division. It provides a spatial view of forest fire occurrence, spread over duration of time which can be incorporated in management objectives to deal with the adverse effect of forest fire. Application/Improvements: Appropriate measures can focus on the particular very high to medium forest fire grid to minimize the effect of forest fire impact.