Wildfire regime in the boreal forest and the idea of suppression and fuel buildup
Johnson EA, Miyanishi K, Bridge SR. 2001. Wildfire regime in the boreal forest and the idea of suppression and fuel buildup. Conservation Biology. 15(6):1554-1557
The explanation often given for the large wildfires that have burned each year in North America in the last two decades is that fire suppression after the 1950s produced a buildup of fuel and changed the landscape-age mosaic, creating conditions for catastrophic fires. Unfortunately, this fuel-buildup idea has been uncritically and inappropriately applied to closed-canopy ecosystems that have always have crown-fire regimes. We show here that the idea of fuel buildup is also invalid for the boreal and sub-alpine forest, another closed-canopy ecosystem with a crown-fire regime.
- Type
- Journal Article
- Authors
- Johnson, E; Miyanishi, K; Bridge, S
- Units
- APIS , GRPO , ISRO , PIRO , SLBE , VOYA
- Keywords
- Boreal Forest, catastrophic wildfire, closed-canopy ecosystem, crown-fire regime, FIRE, Fire Regime, fuel buildup, hazardous fuel buildup, Management, Plant Communities, Suppression, unnatural fuel buildup