Fuel treatment effectiveness in the context of landform, vegetation, and large, wind-driven wildfires

• Published in: Ecological applications Vol. 30; no. 5; p. e02104
• Main Authors: Prichard, Susan J, Povak, Nicholas A, Kennedy, Maureen C, Peterson, David W
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: United States 01.07.2020
• Subjects: Fires; Retrospective Studies; Treatment Outcome; Washington; Wildfires; Wind; Washington; prescribed burning; simultaneous autoregression; fire severity; random forest; wildfires; fuel treatments; Washington; climate change; landscape restoration

Large wildfires (>50,000 ha) are becoming increasingly common in semiarid landscapes of the western United States. Although fuel reduction treatments are used to mitigate potential wildfire effects, they can be overwhelmed in wind-driven wildfire events with extreme fire behavior. We evaluated dr...