Management strategy influences landscape patterns of high-severity burn patches in the southwestern United States

Context Spatial patterns of high-severity wildfire in forests affect vegetation recovery pathways, watershed dynamics, and wildlife habitat across landscapes. Yet, less is known about contemporary trends in landscape patterns of high-severity burn patches or how differing federal fire management str...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Landscape ecology Vol. 36; no. 12; pp. 3429 - 3449
Main Authors: Singleton, Megan P., Thode, Andrea E., Sánchez Meador, Andrew J., Iniguez, Jose M., Stevens, Jens T.
Format: Journal Article
Language:English
Published: Dordrecht Springer Netherlands 01.12.2021
Springer Nature B.V
Subjects:
Arizona
Biomedical and Life Sciences
burn severity
Coniferous forests
conifers
Ecological effects
Ecology
Environmental Management
Homogeneity
Identification methods
Landscape
Landscape Ecology
Landscape/Regional and Urban Planning
landscapes
Life Sciences
Nature Conservation
New Mexico
Research Article
Sustainable Development
Trends
watersheds
Wildfires
Wildlife
Wildlife habitats
Wildlife management
United States > US
Southwestern states
New Mexico
Arizona
Heterogeneity
Fire ecology
Patch dynamics
Stand replacing patches
Spatial pattern
High-severity
RdNBR
ISSN:0921-2973, 1572-9761
Online Access:Get full text
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Summary:Context Spatial patterns of high-severity wildfire in forests affect vegetation recovery pathways, watershed dynamics, and wildlife habitat across landscapes. Yet, less is known about contemporary trends in landscape patterns of high-severity burn patches or how differing federal fire management strategies have influenced such patterns. Objectives We assessed fires managed for ecological/resource benefit and fires that are fully suppressed and investigated: (1) whether spatial patterns of high-severity patches differed by management strategy, (2) whether spatial patterns were related to fire size and percent high-severity fire, and (3) temporal trends in spatial patterns. Methods We examined high-severity spatial patterns within large fires using satellite-derived burn severity data from 735 fires that burned from 1984 to 2017 in Arizona and New Mexico, USA. We calculated a suite of spatial pattern metrics for each individual fire and developed a method to identify those which best explained variation among fires. Results Compared to managed fires, spatial pattern metrics in suppression fires showed greater patch homogeneity. All spatial pattern metrics showed significant relationships with fire size and percent high-severity fire for both management strategies. Mean annual spatiotemporal trends in suppression fires have moved toward smaller, more complex, fragmented patches since the early 2000s. Conclusions Increases in fire size and proportion high-severity fire are driving more homogenous patches regardless of management type, with percent high-severity more strongly driving average temporal trends. Anticipated shifts in fire size and severity will likely result in larger, more contiguous, and simple-shaped patches of high-severity fire within southwestern conifer forests.
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ISSN:0921-2973
1572-9761
DOI:10.1007/s10980-021-01318-3