Landscape Fire Research Articles

Have plants evolved to self-immolate?

By definition fire prone ecosystems have highly combustible plants, leading to the hypothesis, first formally stated by Mutch in 1970, that community flammability is the product of natural selection of flammable traits. However, proving the “Mutch hypothesis” has presented an enormous challenge for fire ecologists given the difficulty in establishing cause and effect between landscape fire and flammable plant traits. Individual plant traits (such as leaf moisture content, retention of dead branches and foliage, oil rich foliage) are known to affect the flammability of plants but there is no evidence these characters evolved specifically to self-immolate, although some of these traits may have been secondarily modified to increase the propensity to burn. Demonstrating individual benefits from self-immolation is extraordinarily difficult, given the intersection of the physical environmental factors that control landscape fire (fuel production, dryness and ignitions) with community flammability properties that emerge from numerous traits of multiple species (canopy cover and litter bed bulk density). It is more parsimonious to conclude plants have evolved mechanisms to tolerate, but not promote, landscape fire.

Short-term effects of fire on Papilionoidea (Lepidoptera) communities: a pilot study in Mediterranean maquis shrubland

In the Mediterranean landscape fires are common, sometimes arising due to human activity. Fire influences the amount of sunlight that reaches the ground, thus affecting the diversity and distribution of animal and plant species. In this study, we analysed the effect of fire on butterfly diversity at the Site of Community Importance (SCI) “Monti di Lauro” (IT8040013) in southern Italy (Campania). The area covers 7040 ha and is mainly characterised by Mediterranean maquis and woody vegetation. We compared the flight activity of butterflies before and after a fire incident in October 2008. Weekly transects were made from April to September in 2008 and 2009. From the transect data, we calculated several diversity indices. We surveyed 55 species and 5052 individuals (2008: 43 species, 1764 individuals; 2009: 49 species, 3288 individuals). Inter-year comparisons showed that richness was significantly lower in 2008 than in 2009, as well as the abundance; the evenness index was significantly higher in 2008 than in 2009. Intra-year comparisons before fire (2008) showed significant differences among months in all indices analysed, whereas after fire (2009), only evenness differed significantly. Our results show that after fire in the Mediterranean maquis, a rapid change in butterfly community structure occurred, increasing both species and individual abundance. Nevertheless, a lower evenness indicates a less balanced butterfly community after fire. Notably, Melanargia arge, a protected species by the Habitats Directive, was not observed following the fire.

What is the relevance of pyrogeography to the Anthropocene?

A defining feature of both the Anthropocene concept and the new discipline of pyrogeography is combustion of carbon-rich fuels by humans. A key objective of pyrogeography is understanding to what degree landscape fires set by hominins has overwritten natural fires through geological time, and whether these changes had substantial ecological knock-on effects. This research is essential to precisely define the onset of the Anthropocene. Nonetheless, the commonly used imprecise definition that the Anthropocene commenced at 1780 is a useful organising principle for pyrogeography because it provides a framework to understand the synergistic effects of anthropogenic global environment changes in shaping global fire activity following the Industrial Revolution.

The Multi-Resolution Land Characteristics (MRLC) Consortium — 20 Years of Development and Integration of USA National Land Cover Data

The Multi-Resolution Land Characteristics (MRLC) Consortium demonstrates the national benefits of USA Federal collaboration. Starting in the mid-1990s as a small group with the straightforward goal of compiling a comprehensive national Landsat dataset that could be used to meet agencies’ needs, MRLC has grown into a group of 10 USA Federal Agencies that coordinate the production of five different products, including the National Land Cover Database (NLCD), the Coastal Change Analysis Program (C-CAP), the Cropland Data Layer (CDL), the Gap Analysis Program (GAP), and the Landscape Fire and Resource Management Planning Tools (LANDFIRE). As a set, the products include almost every aspect of land cover from impervious surface to detailed crop and vegetation types to fire fuel classes. Some products can be used for land cover change assessments because they cover multiple time periods. The MRLC Consortium has become a collaborative forum, where members share research, methodological approaches, and data to produce products using established protocols, and we believe it is a model for the production of integrated land cover products at national to continental scales. We provide a brief overview of each of the main products produced by MRLC and examples of how each product has been used. We follow that with a discussion of the impact of the MRLC program and a brief overview of future plans.

Bushfires, Human Health Economics, and Pyrogeography

AbstractBushfires (landscape fires) are a key Earth system process that affects humans and our societies and economies. In a recent article, we explored the coupling of humans to landscape fire through the lens of human health impacts of bushfire smoke. We noted that such an approach demands recognition of the indirect impacts and costs of bushfires that cannot be captured by simplistic proxies such as deaths directly attributable to a fire front. Evaluation of direct and indirect economic costs of bushfire disasters, and bushfire fire management remains a poorly developed research frontier that demands collaboration of expertise from a broad cross‐section of fields that often have limited experience of collaborating together. The need for such synthetic thinking about fire's place on Earth has spawned the discipline of pyrogeography.

A Decade Long, Multi-Scale Map Comparison of Fire Regime Parameters Derived from Three Publically Available Satellite-Based Fire Products: A Case Study in the Central African Republic

Although it is assumed that satellite-derived descriptions of fire activity will differ depending on the dataset selected for analysis, as of yet, the effects of failed and false detections at the pixel level and on an instantaneous basis have not been propagated through space and time to determine their cumulative impact on the characterization of individual fire regime parameters. Here we perform the first ever decade long, multi-scale map comparison of fire chronologies and fire seasonality derived from three publicly available satellite-based fire products: the MODIS active fire product (MCD14ML), the ATSR nighttime World Fire Atlas (WFA), and the MODIS burned area product (MCD45A1). Results indicate that: (i) the agreement between fire chronologies derived from two dissimilar satellite products improves as fire pixels are aggregated into coarser grid cells, but diminishes as the number of years included in the time series increases; and (ii) all three datasets provide distinctly different portraits of the onset, peak, and duration of the fire season regardless of the map resolution. Differences in regional, long-term fire regime parameters derived from the three datasets are attributed to the unique capability of each sensor and detection algorithm to recognize geographical gradients, seasonal oscillations, decadal trends, and interannual variability in active fire characteristics and burned area patterns. Since different satellite sensors and detection algorithm strategies are sensitive to different types of fires, we demonstrate that disagreements in fire regime maps derived from dissimilar satellite-based fire products can be used as an advantage to highlight spatial and temporal transitions in landscape fire activity. Given access to multiple, publically available datasets, we caution against describing fire regimes using a single satellite-based active fire or burned area product.

Management and climate contributions to satellite‐derived active fire trends in the contiguous United States

Fires in croplands, plantations, and rangelands contribute significantly to fire emissions in the United States, yet are often overshadowed by wildland fires in efforts to develop inventories or estimate responses to climate change. Here we quantified decadal trends, interannual variability, and seasonality of Terra Moderate Resolution Imaging Spectroradiometer (MODIS) observations of active fires (thermal anomalies) as a function of management type in the contiguous U.S. during 2001–2010. We used the Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity database to identify active fires within the perimeter of large wildland fires and land cover maps to identify active fires in croplands. A third class of fires defined as prescribed/other included all residual satellite active fire detections. Large wildland fires were the most variable of all three fire types and had no significant annual trend in the contiguous U.S. during 2001–2010. Active fires in croplands, in contrast, increased at a rate of 3.4% per year. Cropland and prescribed/other fire types combined were responsible for 77% of the total active fire detections within the U.S and were most abundant in the south and southeast. In the west, cropland active fires decreased at a rate of 5.9% per year, likely in response to intensive air quality policies. Potential evaporation was a dominant regulator of the interannual variability of large wildland fires, but had a weaker influence on the other two fire types. Our analysis suggests it may be possible to modify landscape fire emissions within the U.S. by influencing the way fires are used in managed ecosystems.Key PointsWildland, cropland, and prescribed fires had different trends and patternsSensitivity to climate varied with fire typeIntensity of air quality regulation influenced cropland burning trends

Letting giants be – rethinking active fire management of old‐growth eucalypt forest in the Australian tropics

Tall old-growth forests are of global social-economic, political and ecological significance. These forests contribute significantly to the global carbon budget and are of high conservation value given sustained logging and clearing over the past two centuries (Tng et al . 2012a). In Australia, these old-growth forests extend from tropical to temperate regions of Australia in areas where rainfall exceeds 1000 mm per year, being characterized by emergent eucalypt trees attaining statures of 30 m to more than 80 m, with canopy and understorey layers consisting of mesophytic broad-leaved trees and treelets, sclerophyllous shrubs and graminoids (Fig. 1). These forests support some of the tallest flowering plants in the world, are important habitats for a unique suite of flora and fauna, and are important forest cover for metropolitan water catchments – values that make giant eucalypt forests a focal point of scientific study and ecotourism (Tng et al . 2012a). Until recently, these eucalypt forests were extensively exploited as a timber resource, but now, most remaining old-growth stands have been set aside for conservation. In some regions containing giant eucalypt forest, native forestry activities either have ceased or are based on shortrotation harvests of regrowth forests, meaning that the trees can never achieve their potential size. Regeneration typically occurs after landscape fires, and fire is also used to initiate regeneration of temperate eucalypts after logging and to reduce fuel loads (Attiwill et al ., in press). In temperate regions, fire management of the remaining stands of old-growth giant eucalypt forest is largely based upon fire suppression and fuel reduction burning in surrounding open forests, as fires in giant eucalypt forests are extremely difficult to control because these forests are only flammable under dangerous fire weather conditions (Bowman et al . 2013). In subtropical and tropical forests, fuel reduction burning is used to reduce fire hazard within the giant forests as well as in adjacent open forests and savannas. What constitutes the most appropriate and ecologically sustainable fire management practices of these giant forests remains a controversial issue among scientists, land managers and conservationists. Here, we outline recent advances in landscape ecology theory, palaeoecology and functional biology research on a giant eucalypt forest type in the Wet Tropics region of northeast Australia to explore options to achieve sustainable management of these systems. Given the ecological similarity between Australia’s giant eucalypt forests and other old-growth forests in the Northern Hemisphere (Tng et al . 2012a), the insights gleaned herein have implications for a wide range of old-growth forests. Further, the expansion of rain forest into surrounding savannas has implications for the management of savannas and grasslands, where there remains debate as to whether increased woody biomass should be managed using fire or allowed to accumulate (Bond & Parr 2010).

Relative effects of climate change and wildfires on stream temperatures: a simulation modeling approach in a Rocky Mountain watershed

Freshwater ecosystems are warming globally from the direct effects of climate change on air temperature and hydrology and the indirect effects on near-stream vegetation. In fire-prone landscapes, vegetative change may be especially rapid and cause significant local stream temperature increases but the importance of these increases relative to broader changes associated with air temperature and hydrology are not well understood. We linked a spatially explicit landscape fire and vegetation model (FireBGCv2) to an empirical regression equation that predicted daily stream temperatures to explore how climate change and its impacts on fire might affect stream thermal conditions across a partially forested, mountainous landscape in the western U.S. We used the model to understand the roles that wildfire and management actions such as fuel reduction and fire suppression could play in mitigating stream thermal responses to climate change. Results indicate that air temperature increases associated with future climates could account for a much larger proportion of stream temperature increases (as much as 90 % at a basin scale) than wildfire. Similarly, land management scenarios that limited wildfire prevalence had negligible effects on future stream temperature increases. These patterns emerged at broader spatial scales because wildfires typically affected only a subset of a stream's network. However, at finer spatial and temporal scales stream temperatures were sensitive to wildfire. Although wildfires will continue to cause local, short-term effects on stream temperatures, managers of aquatic systems may need to find other solutions to cope with the larger impact from climate change on future stream warming that involves adapting to the increases while developing broad strategies for riparian vegetation restoration.

Long-term trends and interannual variability of forest, savanna and agricultural fires in South America

Background: Landscape fires in South America have considerable impacts on ecosystems, air quality and the climate system. We examined long-term trends and interannual variability of forest, savanna and agricultural fires for the continent during 2001–2012 using multiple satellite-derived fire products. Results: The annual number of active fires in tropical forests increased significantly during 2001–2005. Several satellite-derived metrics, including fire persistence, indicated that this trend was mostly driven by deforestation. Fires between 2005 and 2012 had a small decreasing trend and large year-to-year changes that were associated with climate extremes. Fires in savannas and evergreen forests increased in parallel during drought events in 2005, 2007 and 2010, suggesting similar regional climate controls on fire behavior. Deforestation fire intensity (the number of fires per unit of deforested area) increased significantly within the Brazilian Amazon in areas with small-scale deforestation. Conclusion: Fires associated with forest degradation are becoming an increasingly important component of the fire regime and associated carbon emissions.

Unauthorized Firesetting as Socioecological Disturbance: A Spatiotemporal Analysis of Incendiary Wildfires in Georgia, USA, 1987–2010

AbstractI analyzed the spatiotemporal patterning of intentional, unauthorized landscape fires in the state of Georgia, USA, for the years 1987 through 2010 with the aim of delineating socioecological constraints on and firesetter preferences for the timing and placement of ignitions. Unauthorized fires represent complex phenomena through which actors compete over social and ecological outcomes that transcend the spatiotemporal confines of individual fires themselves. Current classificatory systems define unauthorized firesetting behavior as irrational, destructive, and malicious. Because landscape fires cause both positive and negative consequences for biological diversity and ecosystems services, perceived costs and benefits of fires are contestable and relative to point of view. The locational and temporal patterns of unauthorized landscape fires examined in this study do not show firesetter preferences for maximizing damage to landscapes. Instead, unauthorized fires in Georgia potentially contribute to the maintenance of landscapes adapted to frequent, dormant- and early growing-season fire regimes.

Landscape-Scale Disturbances Modified Bird Community Dynamics in Successional Forest Environment

Ecosystem-based forest management strives to develop silvicultural practices that best emulate natural disturbances such as wildfire to conserve biodiversity representative of natural forest ecosystems. Yet, current logging practices alter forest structure and reduce the proportion of old-growth forest and, consequently, can exert long-term effects on the dynamics of forest biota. The stand- and landscape-scale factors driving bird community dynamics in post-disturbance environment remain poorly understood. In this study, we examined bird community dynamics along successional gradients in boreal ecosystems originating from fire and logging in landscapes dominated by old-growth forest. We tested if bird species richness and community compositions in clear-cutting stands became comparable to those in natural stands after 70 years, and identified the relative contributions of stand- and landscape-scale forest attributes in bird community dynamics. Based on records of bird occurrences at 185 field sites in natural and clearcutting stands, we demonstrate that (1) both forest structures and bird communities underwent evident changes along successional gradients in post-clearcutting environment; (2) bird species richness and community composition in 60- to 70-years-old clearcutting stands still differed from those in 50- to 79-years-old natural stands, in spite of the fact that most forest attributes of clearcutting stands became comparable to those of natural stands after 40 years; and (3) landscape disturbances contributed more than stand characteristics in explaining the lack of convergence of mature forest species, residents, and short-distance migrants in post-clearcutting environment. Our study points out that more regards should be paid to improve the landscape configuration of the managed forests, and implies that old-growth forest retention within logged areas, combined with selection cutting and prolonged logging rotations, can better emulate fire and alleviate forest harvesting effects on bird community assemblages typical of natural boreal ecosystem.

Temporal changes in habitat use by snowshoe hares and red squirrels during post-fire and post-logging forest succession

Ecosystem-based management has taken a central role in the conservation of animal populations in managed landscapes. A fundamental assumption of ecosystem-based management by the emulation of natural disturbances is that logging practices would protect biodiversity by maintaining key ecosystem properties. The hypothesis, however, needs to be tested on a broad range of organisms. We assessed the relative influence of natural and anthropogenic disturbances on habitat use by snowshoe hare (Lepus americanus) and red squirrel (Tamiasciurus hudsonicus). We compared the intensity of habitat use by the two species along a chronosequence of succession after fire (20–200years) and clear-cutting (20–80years) in boreal landscapes dominated by old-growth forest stands. We also characterised temporal changes in vegetation along both chronosequences. We found that snowshoe hare preferentially uses cutting-origin stands and that the peak of habitat use by red squirrels occurs about 20years earlier after cutting than after fire. Higher tree density and earlier balsam fir (Abies balsamea) regeneration after clear-cutting than after fire partly explained these differences in animal response to the type of disturbance. As a result, forest fires cannot be simply reproduced by clear-cutting, and ecosystem-based management should take these differences into account whenever the management objective is to alleviate the long-term impact of forestry on forest ecosystems.

Postglacial climate and fire‐mediated vegetation change on the western Olympic Peninsula, Washington (USA)

The mode and tempo of forest compositional change during periods of rapid climate change, including the potential for the fire regime to produce nonlinear relationships between climate and vegetation, is a long‐standing theme of forest ecological research. In the old conifer forests of the coastal Pacific Northwest, fire disturbances are sufficiently rare that their relation to climate and their ecological effects are poorly understood. We used a 14 700‐year high‐resolution sediment record from Yahoo Lake on the Olympic Peninsula, Washington, USA, to examine vegetation (landscape vegetation from pollen and local vegetation from macrofossils) and fire (landscape fire from total charcoal and local fire from charcoal peaks) in conjunction with independent records of climate. We hypothesized that the successional stage of the local forest will exhibit alternate stable states over a range of fire activity, that species turnover will increase abruptly above a certain level of fire activity and that both responses would be more gradual at the landscape scale than the local scale. Supporting these hypotheses, at the local scale, we found strong evidence for alternate stable states of late vs. early successional communities and inertia of species turnover to changing fire activity. At the landscape scale, vegetation responded more gradually to changing fire activity. From 14 700 to 7000 years ago, high landscape vegetation turnover occurred along with high landscape fire activity, especially during the warm summers of the early Holocene. In several instances, local species turned over completely following fire events but several centuries after climate change. In contrast, during the last 7000 years, the local forest composition was dominated by late‐successional species with little species turnover, despite periods of moderate fire activity. We suggest that the relatively minor climate fluctuations of the past 7000 years were not sufficient to cause large‐scale species turnover after fire. The Yahoo Lake fire and vegetation record of the early Holocene provides a model for dramatic ecosystem change following an anticipated shift to warmer summer temperatures.

Historical fire in sagebrush landscapes of the Gunnison sage-grouse range from land-survey records

We use land-survey records to reconstruct historical fire and landscapes in the current range of the Gunnison sage-grouse (GUSG; Centrocercus minimus), which is proposed for listing under the Endangered Species Act. Using section-line descriptions from 1872 to 1892 surveys, and fire indicators, we reconstructed 110 potential fire patches and 76 fires over about 219,000 ha of sagebrush. The fire-size distribution was inverse-J shaped with a geometric mean patch size of 154 ha and fire size of 212 ha. Historical fire rotations were 178–357 years in Wyoming big sagebrush (Artemisia tridentata ssp. wyomingensis) and 90–143 years in mountain big sagebrush (A. tridentata ssp. vaseyana). Fires left little interior unburned area (<4%). Infrequent fires >10,000 ha created expansive grass-dominated vegetation followed by extended recovery and dominance by mature sagebrush. Historical landscapes contained large contiguous expanses of mature sagebrush, structured by variations in density and patches of trees. Dense sagebrush covered 20%, scattered sagebrush 15%, and sagebrush with scattered trees 19% of the area, likely representing natural tree fluctuation in sagebrush and slow post-fire recovery in adjoining woodlands. Preserving large expanses of contiguous sagebrush is consistent with historical fire and recent fragmentation of sagebrush habitat. Treatments to thin and reduce sagebrush appear unnecessary.

Exploring the role of fire, succession, climate, and weather on landscape dynamics using comparative modeling

An assessment of the relative importance of vegetation change and disturbance as agents of landscape change under current and future climates would (1) provide insight into the controls of landscape dynamics, (2) help inform the design and development of coarse scale spatially explicit ecosystem models such as Dynamic Global Vegetation Models (DGVMs), and (3) guide future land management and planning. However, quantification of landscape change from vegetation development and disturbance effects is difficult because of the large space and long time scales involved. Comparative simulation modeling experiments, using a suite of models to simulate a set of scenarios, can provide a platform for investigating landscape change over more ecologically appropriate time and space scales that control vegetation and disturbance. We implemented a multifactorial simulation experiment using five landscape fire succession models to explore the role of fire and vegetation development under various climates on a neutral landscape. The simulation experiment had four factors with two or three treatments each: (1) fire (fire and no fire), (2) succession (dynamic and static succession), (3) climate (historical, warm-wet, warm-dry), and (4) weather (constant, variable). We found that, under historical climates, succession changed more area annually than fire by factors of 1.2 to 34, but one model simulated more landscape change from fire (factor of 0.1). However, we also found that fire becomes more important in warmer future climates with factors decreasing to below zero for most models. We also found that there were few differences in simulation results between weather scenarios with low or high variability. Results from this study show that there will be a shift from vegetation processes that control today's landscape dynamics to fire processes under future warmer and drier climates, and this shift means that detailed representations of both succession and fire should be incorporated into models to realistically simulate interactions between disturbance and vegetation.

Potential Effects of Disturbance Types and Environmental Variability on Sagebrush-Steppe Community Dynamics

AbstractWhile fire is widely recognized as an important factor shaping sagebrush (Artemisia spp.) ecosystems, little is known about the role other natural events play in these systems. Using a state-and-transition modeling framework in conjunction with the scientific literature and data for climate (temperature, precipitation, and snow), soils (soil surveys and ecological site descriptions), and modern fire occurrence records, we explored how fire and various other natural events might shape sagebrush ecosystems in eastern Oregon, USA, and whether those events could affect fire rotation. Model results suggested other disturbance events were important in shaping all but the most productive sagebrush communities and influenced fire rotation in drier sagebrush communities. Insects and pronghorn browsing may have been as important as fire in shaping sagebrush-steppe landscapes with freezekill and snow mold locally important. Our study also demonstrated the use of climate, soils, ecological site, and fire occurrence data to derive probabilities of several natural events, providing a more objective approach to estimating reference conditions.

Global impact of smoke aerosols from landscape fires on climate and the Hadley circulation

Abstract. Each year landscape fires across the globe emit black and organic carbon smoke particles that can last in the atmosphere for days to weeks. We characterized the climate response to these aerosols using an Earth system model. We used remote sensing observations of aerosol optical depth (AOD) and simulations from the Community Atmosphere Model, version 5 (CAM5) to optimize satellite-derived smoke emissions for high biomass burning regions. Subsequent global simulations using the adjusted fire emissions produced AODs that were in closer agreement with surface and space-based measurements. We then used CAM5, which included radiative aerosol effects, to evaluate the climate response to the fire-aerosol forcing. We conducted two 52 yr simulations, one with four sets of monthly cycling 1997–2009 fire emissions and one without. Fire emissions increased global mean annual AOD by 10% (+0.02) and decreased net all-sky surface radiation by 1% (1.3 W m−2). Elevated AODs reduced global surface temperatures by 0.13 &amp;amp;pm; 0.01 °C. Though global precipitation declined only slightly, patterns of precipitation changed, with large reductions near the Equator offset by smaller increases north and south of the intertropical convergence zone (ITCZ). A combination of increased tropospheric heating and reduced surface temperatures increased equatorial subsidence and weakened the Hadley circulation. As a consequence, precipitation decreased over tropical forests in South America, Africa and equatorial Asia. These results are consistent with the observed correlation between global temperatures and the strength of the Hadley circulation and studies linking tropospheric heating from black carbon aerosols with tropical expansion.

Forest mapping by geoinformatics for landscape fire behaviour modelling in coastal forests, Greece

This study aims at quantifying and mapping fire-related characteristics of forest structure through field inventories, statistics, remote sensing, and geographical information systems in the island of Lesvos, northeast Aegean Sea, Greece. Simulation of fire behaviour requires forest biomass inputs that describe surface fuel types/models along with canopy fuel properties, such as canopy cover, stand height, crown base height, and crown bulk density, to accurately predict surface and crown fire spread and spotting potential. Forest canopy characteristics and other vegetation attributes were sampled and derived in over 100 field plots, the majority of which were located in coastal pine forest stands. Regression models involving four dependent forest stand variables (stand height, canopy cover, crown base height, and crown bulk density) were developed using generalized additive models. The values of adjusted R 2 were 0.72 for stand height, 0.68 for canopy cover, 0.51 for crown base height, and 0.33 for crown bulk density. These regression models were used to create forest fuel characteristics layers, which can be used as inputs to fire management applications and state-of-the-art landscape-scale fire behaviour models.

The role of holm oak edges in the control of disturbance and conservation of plant diversity in fire-prone landscapes

Holm oak (Quercus rotundifolia) woodlands have been able to persist in fire-prone landscapes in northern Portugal where they seem to play a relevant role in community and landscape level patterns and processes, namely in the control of disturbance events and in the maintenance of biodiversity. In this research we tested the following hypotheses: (i) holm oak woodlands affect fire behavior, mainly by disrupting and delaying fire spread; (ii) disruption and delaying of fire spread is due to fire extinction at the edge of woodlands; and (iii) plant diversity is favored by frequent low-intensity fires as a result of the control of fire spread by holm oak woodland edges. We sampled herbaceous, shrub and tree structure and herbaceous plant composition across edges of holm oak woodlands with known recent contact with fire. Using BehavePlus we converted structural data into fuel models and simulated fire behavior for the locations sampled along the exterior–interior gradient of the woodlands. Our results indicate that holm oak woodlands play a relevant role in the control of fire spread and in the maintenance of plant diversity. We found differences in simulated maximum rate of fire spread (ROS) and fireline intensity (FLI) between outside and inside woodlands as well as a 100% probability of fire extinction when fuel moisture was >12% and wind speed at 10m aboveground was <40kmh−1, supporting the self-extinction hypothesis. We found also that richness and abundance of herbaceous plants varied between the interior and exterior of the woodland, with higher values outside the woodland, and that plant composition along the interior–exterior gradient had distinct patterns. These variables and the pattern of plant distribution were also significantly affected by time since last fire event. We conclude that holm oak woodlands affect fire behavior by interrupting fire spread at the edge zone and that fire-created edges affect herbaceous plant species richness, abundance and distribution by maintaining habitat diversity, which increased plant diversity at patch and landscape levels. Based on our results and other evidence, we developed a conceptual model of the dynamics of fire, landscape structure, and plant diversity in fire-prone landscapes where holm oak patches persist.