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Fire is an integral component of ecosystems globally and a tool that humans have harnessed for millennia. Altered fire regimes are a fundamental cause and consequence of global change, impacting people and the biophysical systems on which they depend. As part of the newly emerging Anthropocene, marked by human-caused climate change and radical changes to ecosystems, fire danger is increasing, and fires are having increasingly devastating impacts on human health, infrastructure, and ecosystem services. Increasing fire danger is a vexing problem that requires deep transdisciplinary, trans-sector, and inclusive partnerships to address. Here, we outline barriers and opportunities in the next generation of fire science and provide guidance for investment in future research. We synthesize insights needed to better address the long-standing challenges of innovation across disciplines to (i) promote coordinated research efforts; (ii) embrace different ways of knowing and knowledge generation; (iii) promote exploration of fundamental science; (iv) capitalize on the "firehose" of data for societal benefit; and (v) integrate human and natural systems into models across multiple scales. Fire science is thus at a critical transitional moment. We need to shift from observation and modeled representations of varying components of climate, people, vegetation, and fire to more integrative and predictive approaches that support pathways toward mitigating and adapting to our increasingly flammable world, including the utilization of fire for human safety and benefit. Only through overcoming institutional silos and accessing knowledge across diverse communities can we effectively undertake research that improves outcomes in our more fiery future.

We review science-based adaptation strategies for western North American (wNA) forests that include restoring active fire regimes and fostering resilient structure and composition of forested landscapes. As part of the review, we address common questions associated with climate adaptation and realignment treatments that run counter to a broad consensus in the literature. These include the following: (1) Are the effects of fire exclusion overstated? If so, are treatments unwarranted and even counterproductive? (2) Is forest thinning alone sufficient to mitigate wildfire hazard? (3) Can forest thinning and prescribed burning solve the problem? (4) Should active forest management, including forest thinning, be concentrated in the wildland urban interface (WUI)? (5) Can wildfires on their own do the work of fuel treatments? (6) Is the primary objective of fuel reduction treatments to assist in future firefighting response and containment? (7) Do fuel treatments work under extreme fire weather? (8) Is the scale of the problem too great? Can we ever catch up? (9) Will planting more trees mitigate climate change in wNA forests? And (10) is post-fire management needed or even ecologically justified? Based on our review of the scientific evidence, a range of proactive management actions are justified and necessary to keep pace with changing climatic and wildfire regimes and declining forest heterogeneity after severe wildfires. Science-based adaptation options include the use of managed wildfire, prescribed burning, and coupled mechanical thinning and prescribed burning as is consistent with land management allocations and forest conditions. Although some current models of fire management in wNA are averse to short-term risks and uncertainties, the long-term environmental, social, and cultural consequences of wildfire management primarily grounded in fire suppression are well documented, highlighting an urgency to invest in intentional forest management and restoration of active fire regimes.

Climate change is increasingly recognized for its impacts on human health, including how biotic and abiotic factors are driving shifts in infectious disease. Changes in ecological conditions and processes due to temperature and precipitation fluctuations and intensified disturbance regimes are affecting infectious pathogen transmission, habitat, hosts, and the characteristics of pathogens themselves. Understanding the relationships between climate change and infectious diseases can help clinicians broaden the scope of differential diagnoses when interviewing, diagnosing, and treating patients presenting with infections lacking obvious agents or transmission pathways. Here, we highlight key examples of how the mechanisms of climate change affect infectious diseases associated with water, fire, land, insects, and human transmission pathways in the hope of expanding the analytical framework for infectious disease diagnoses. Increased awareness of these relationships can help prepare both clinical physicians and epidemiologists for continued impacts of climate change on infectious disease in the future.

Wildland fires have a multitude of ecological effects in forests, woodlands, and savannas across the globe. A major focus of past research has been on tree mortality from fire, as trees provide a vast range of biological services. We assembled a database of individual-tree records from prescribed fires and wildfires in the United States. The Fire and Tree Mortality (FTM) database includes records from 164,293 individual trees with records of fire injury (crown scorch, bole char, etc.), tree diameter, and either mortality or top-kill up to ten years post-fire. Data span 142 species and 62 genera, from 409 fires occurring from 1981-2016. Additional variables such as insect attack are included when available. The FTM database can be used to evaluate individual fire-caused mortality models for pre-fire planning and post-fire decision support, to develop improved models, and to explore general patterns of individual fire-induced tree death. The database can also be used to identify knowledge gaps that could be addressed in future research.

Overstory trees serve multiple functions in grassy savannas. Past research has shown that understory species can vary along gradients of canopy cover and basal area in savannas. This variation is frequently associated with light availability but could also be related to other mechanisms, such as heterogeneity in soil and litter depth and fire intensity. Several savanna studies have found differences in understory plant functional groups within the local environment near trees versus away from them in canopy openings. Although small‐scale variation is known to be high in southeastern U.S. pine savannas, patterns in understory species diversity have not been examined at the scale of individual overstory pine trees in this system. We conducted an observational study of the relationship between understory plant communities and proximity to individual pine trees in xeric and mesic pine savannas in frequently burned sites (1–3 year intervals). We recorded the plant community composition in plots adjacent to tree boles (basal) or outside crown driplines (open). Within each environment, raw species richness was significantly greater in open locations, where light transmittance was greater. In contrast, rarified species richness did not differ. Multivariate analyses showed that community composition differed significantly between basal and open plots. One native, woody species in each environment, Serenoa repens (W. Bartram) Small in mesic and Diospyros virginiana L. in xeric, was more abundant in basal plots. In mesic environments, eight species had greater occurrence in open plots. In xeric environments, four understory forbs were more abundant in open plots. Our results support previous research indicating that individual pine trees are associated with significant variation in understory vegetation in pine savannas. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Soil CO2 efflux (Rs) is a significant source of carbon dioxide from soils to the atmosphere and is a critical component of total ecosystem carbon budgets. Prescribed fire is one of the most prevalent forest management tools employed in the southeastern USA. This study investigated the influence of prescribed fire on Rs rates in old-field pine-grassland forests in north Florida, USA, that had been managed with prescribed fire annually and biennially for over 40 years, or left unburned for approximately the same period. Monthly measurements were taken of Rs, soil temperature (Ts), and soil moisture from August 2009 to May 2011. Results showed that sites managed with annual and biennial dormant season prescribed fire had significantly lower monthly mean Rs rates and estimated annual soil carbon fluxes than sites where fire had been excluded. While Ts explained a significant amount of the temporal variations in Rs, it did not explain the differences in Rs among prescribed fire treatments. Our results provide new insight into the effects of prescribed fire and fire exclusion on soil carbon fluxes, and suggest that future methods to model ecosystem carbon budgets should incorporate not only current vegetative conditions, but also prescribed fire management activities. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Wildfire presents a challenge to natural resource managers the world over, and the intentional setting of fires can be used to alleviate some of the challenges associated with wildfire management. Prescribed burning can be used prior to wildfires to reduce fuel loads and promote ecological integrity in fire-adapted systems, while suppression burning can help firefighters control the direction, extent, and intensity of wildfire behavior under extreme conditions. In both cases, the success of intentional fire use depends on training, knowledge, experience, and institutional and social support. The influence of these factors can significantly impact whether fire use is perceived as positive or negative, increasing or decreasing, and whether managers are supportive of its incorporation into their management planning and decision-making. Perceived impediments to fire use are likely to differ based on location, level of training and experience, and even the social context of fire management specific to different job positions in natural resource management. In order to explore how managers and stakeholders across the world perceive fire use, we surveyed over 700 respondents from 12 countries and three continents. This study represents the largest survey of perceptions on managed fire use ever conducted. Perceptions differed across age categories, job positions, and regions. Countries or regions with larger amounts of wildfire area burned tended to be more supportive of fire use for suppression, while countries with less wildfire had less positive perceptions of fire use for either prescribed or suppression burning. Bureaucracy and social perceptions were identified as impediments to using prescribed fire prior to wildfire occurrence, but neither were identified as impediments to fire use during suppression procedures. Across the countries, fire use in suppression was viewed more positively than prescribed fire use prior to wildfire occurrence. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

The southern region of the U.S. uses prescribed fire as a management tool on more of its burnable land than anywhere in the U.S., with ecosystem restoration, wildlife habitat enhancement, and reduction of hazardous fuel loads as typical goals. Although the region performs more than 50,000 prescribed fire treatments each year, evaluation of their effects on wildfire suppression resources or behavior/effects is limited. To better understand trends in the use and effectiveness of prescribed fire, we conducted a region-wide survey of 523 fire use practitioners, working on both public and private lands. A 1-2 year prescribed fire interval was consistently viewed as effective in decreasing wildfire ignitions, behavior, and severity, as well as reducing suppression resources needed where wildfire occurred. Yet fewer than 15% of practitioners viewed burn intervals of 3-4 years as effective in reducing ignitions, underscoring the importance of high-frequency burning in vegetation communities where fuel recovery is rapid. Public lands managers identified limited budget and staffing as major institutional impediments to prescribed fire, in contrast to private individuals, more of whom chose liability as a key challenge. Differences in responses across ownership type, state, and vegetation type call for a broader perspective on how fire managers in the southern U.S. view prescribed fire. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]