1984–2010 trends in fire burn severity and area for the conterminous US
Abstract
Burn severity products created by the Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity (MTBS) project were used to analyse historical trends in burn severity. Using a severity metric calculated by modelling the cumulative distribution of differenced Normalized Burn Ratio (dNBR) and Relativized dNBR (RdNBR) data, we examined burn area and burn severity of 4893 historical fires (1984–2010) distributed across the conterminous US (CONUS) and mapped by MTBS. Yearly mean burn severity values (weighted by area), maximum burn severity metric values, mean area of burn, maximum burn area and total burn area were evaluated within 27 US National Vegetation Classification macrogroups. Time series assessments of burned area and severity were performed using Mann–Kendall tests. Burned area and severity varied by vegetation classification, but most vegetation groups showed no detectable change during the 1984–2010 period. Of the 27 analysed vegetation groups, trend analysis revealed burned area increased in eight, and burn severity has increased in seven. This study suggests that burned area and severity, as measured by the severity metric based on dNBR or RdNBR, have not changed substantially for most vegetation groups evaluated within CONUS.
Integrity signals
Registry
Cites
Statistics
Claims the paper makes
Claims other papers make about this one
Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?
MTBS has been the dataset of choice in studies on CONUS-wide trends in burn severity and area, forest disturbance, and vegetation type conversion after wildland fire.
“MTBS has been the dataset of choice in studies on CONUS-wide trends in burn severity and area28,29, forest disturbance30, and vegetation type conversion after wildland fire31.”
From Burned forests impact water supplies (2018) · cites this paper as [29]
Cites
Nonparametric Tests Against Trend
Mann, H. B. (1945) · Econometrica · doi:10.2307/1907187 · Cited by 17,522 · see citing works
Estimates of the Regression Coefficient Based on Kendall's Tau
Sen, P. K. (1968) · Journal of the American Statistical Association · doi:10.1080/01621459.1968.10480934 · Cited by 14,936 · see citing works
A Rank-Invariant Method of Linear and Polynomial Regression Analysis
Theil, H. (1992) · Advanced studies in theoretical and applied econometrics · doi:10.1007/978-94-011-2546-8_20 · Cited by 2,602 · see citing works
Yue, S., Pilon, P., & Cavadias, G. (2002) · Journal of Hydrology · doi:10.1016/s0022-1694(01)00594-7 · Cited by 2,120 · see citing works
Hartigan, J. A., & Hartigan, P. M. (1985) · The Annals of Statistics · doi:10.1214/aos/1176346577 · Cited by 1,996 · see citing works
Miller, J. D., & Thode, A. E. (2007) · Remote Sensing of Environment · doi:10.1016/j.rse.2006.12.006 · Cited by 1,444 · see citing works
A Project for Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity
Eidenshink, J., Schwind, B., Brewer, K., Zhu, Z.-L., Quayle, B., & Howard, S. (2007) · Fire Ecology · doi:10.4996/fireecology.0301003 · Cited by 1,423 · see citing works
Self-citationLarge wildfire trends in the western United States, 1984–2011
Dennison, P. E., Brewer, S. C., Arnold, J. D., & Moritz, M. A. (2014) · Geophysical Research Letters · doi:10.1002/2014gl059576 · Cited by 1,322 · see citing works
LANDFIRE: a nationally consistent vegetation, wildland fire, and fuel assessment
Rollins, M. G. (2009) · International Journal of Wildland Fire · doi:10.1071/wf08088 · Cited by 722 · see citing works
Miller, J. D., Knapp, E. E., Key, C. H., Skinner, C. N., Isbell, C., Creasy, R. M., & Sherlock, J. W. (2009) · Remote Sensing of Environment · doi:10.1016/j.rse.2008.11.009 · Cited by 488 · see citing works
A New Metric for Quantifying Burn Severity: The Relativized Burn Ratio
Parks, S. A., Dillon, G. K., & Miller, C. (2014) · Remote Sensing · doi:10.3390/rs6031827 · Cited by 452 · see citing works
Remote Sensing of Fire Severity: Assessing the Performance of the Normalized Burn Ratio
Roy, D. P., Boschetti, L., & Trigg, S. N. (2006) · IEEE Geoscience and Remote Sensing Letters · doi:10.1109/lgrs.2005.858485 · Cited by 425 · see citing works
Dillon, G. K., Holden, Z. A., Morgan, P., Crimmins, M. A., Heyerdahl, E. K., & Luce, C. H. (2011) · Ecosphere · doi:10.1890/es11-00271.1 · Cited by 389 · see citing works
The ecology of mixed severity fire regimes in Washington, Oregon, and northern California
Perry, D. A., Hessburg, P. F., Skinner, C. N., Spies, T. A., Stephens, S. L., Taylor, A. H., Franklin, J. F., McComb, B., & Riegel, G. (2011) · Forest Ecology and Management · doi:10.1016/j.foreco.2011.05.004 · Cited by 306 · see citing works
Estimating burn severity from Landsat dNBR and RdNBR indices across western Canada
Soverel, N. O., Perrakis, D. D. B., & Coops, N. C. (2010) · Remote Sensing of Environment · doi:10.1016/j.rse.2010.03.013 · Cited by 292 · see citing works
Miller, J. D., & Safford, H. D. (2012) · Fire Ecology · doi:10.4996/fireecology.0803041 · Cited by 235 · see citing works
Cansler, C. A., & McKenzie, D. (2013) · Ecological Applications · doi:10.1890/13-1077.1 · Cited by 230 · see citing works
Parks, S., Miller, C., Nelson, C. R., & Holden, Z. (2013) · Ecosystems · doi:10.1007/s10021-013-9704-x · Cited by 222 · see citing works
Algorithm AS 217: Computation of the Dip Statistic to Test for Unimodality
Hartigan, P. M. (1985) · Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series C (Applied Statistics) · doi:10.2307/2347485 · Cited by 213 · see citing works
Mallek, C., Safford, H., Viers, J., & Miller, J. (2013) · Ecosphere · doi:10.1890/es13-00217.1 · Cited by 183 · see citing works
Cansler, C. A., & McKenzie, D. (2012) · Remote Sensing · doi:10.3390/rs4020456 · Cited by 165 · see citing works
FIRE SEVERITY AND ECOSYTEM RESPONSES FOLLOWING CROWN FIRES IN CALIFORNIA SHRUBLANDS
Keeley, J. E., Brennan, T. J., & Pfaff, A. H. (2008) · Ecological Applications · doi:10.1890/07-0836.1 · Cited by 154 · see citing works
Fuel treatments and landform modify landscape patterns of burn severity in an extreme fire event
Prichard, S. J., & Kennedy, M. C. (2013) · Ecological Applications · doi:10.1890/13-0343.1 · Cited by 139 · see citing works
Vegetation and weather explain variation in crown damage within a large mixed-severity wildfire
Thompson, J. R., & Spies, T. A. (2009) · Forest Ecology and Management · doi:10.1016/j.foreco.2009.07.031 · Cited by 128 · see citing works
Climate, lightning ignitions, and fire severity in Yosemite National Park, California, USA
Lutz, J. A., van Wagtendonk, J. W., Thode, A. E., Miller, J. D., & Franklin, J. F. (2009) · International Journal of Wildland Fire · doi:10.1071/wf08117 · Cited by 125 · see citing works
Miller, J. D., Collins, B. M., Lutz, J. A., Stephens, S. L., van Wagtendonk, J. W., & Yasuda, D. A. (2012) · Ecosphere · doi:10.1890/es12-00158.1 · Cited by 101 · see citing works
van Mantgem, P. J., Stephenson, N. L., Knapp, E. E., Battles, J. J., & Keeley, J. E. (2011) · Forest Ecology and Management · doi:10.1016/j.foreco.2010.12.013 · Cited by 100 · see citing works
Santis, A. D., Asner, G. P., Vaughan, P. J., et al. (2010) · Remote Sensing of Environment · doi:10.1016/j.rse.2010.02.008 · Cited by 99 · see citing works
Fire Frequency, Area Burned, and Severity: A Quantitative Approach to Defining a Normal Fire Year
Lutz, J. A., Key, C. H., Kolden, C. A., Kane, J. T., & van Wagtendonk, J. W. (2011) · Fire Ecology · doi:10.4996/fireecology.0702051 · Cited by 87 · see citing works
Validation of remote sensing of burn severity in south-eastern US ecosystems
Picotte, J. J., & Robertson, K. M. (2011) · International Journal of Wildland Fire · doi:10.1071/wf10013 · Cited by 84 · see citing works
Self-citationFinco, M. V., Quayle, B., Zhang, Y., Lecker, J., Megown, K., & Brewer, C. K. (2012) · Cited by 81 · see citing works
Satellite-based assessment of climate controls on US burned area
Morton, D. C., Collatz, G. J., Wang, D., Randerson, J. T., Giglio, L., & Chen, Y. (2013) · Biogeosciences · doi:10.5194/bg-10-247-2013 · Cited by 61 · see citing works
Performance of Burn-Severity Metrics and Classification in Oak Woodlands and Grasslands
Stambaugh, M. C., Hammer, L. D., & Godfrey, R. D. (2015) · Remote Sensing · doi:10.3390/rs70810501 · Cited by 55 · see citing works
Zhao, F., Keane, R. E., Zhu, Z., & Huang, C. (2015) · Forest Ecology and Management · doi:10.1016/j.foreco.2015.01.020 · Cited by 12 · see citing works
Flagged first, then by citations
Cited by
Sorted by citations
Adapt to more wildfire in western North American forests as climate changes
Schoennagel, T., Balch, J. K., Brenkert-Smith, H., Dennison, P. E., Harvey, B. J., Krawchuk, M. A., Mietkiewicz, N., Morgan, P., Moritz, M. A., Rasker, R., et al. (2017) · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · doi:10.1073/pnas.1617464114 · Cited by 774 · see citing works
Burned forests impact water supplies
Hallema, D. W., Sun, G., Caldwell, P. V., Norman, S. P., Cohen, E. C., Liu, Y., Bladon, K. D., & McNulty, S. G. (2018) · Nature Communications · doi:10.1038/s41467-018-03735-6 · Cited by 193 · see citing works
Changing spatial patterns of stand-replacing fire in California conifer forests
Stevens, J. T., Collins, B. M., Miller, J. D., North, M. P., & Stephens, S. L. (2017) · Forest Ecology and Management · doi:10.1016/j.foreco.2017.08.051 · Cited by 182 · see citing works
- Authors
- Picotte, J. J., Peterson, B., Meier, G., & Howard, S. M.
- Affiliations
- United States Geological Survey (US)
- Corresponding author
- Picotte, Joshua J.
- Howard, Stephen M.
- Venue
- International Journal of Wildland Fire
- Publisher
- CSIRO Publishing
- Published
- 2016-03-10
- Volume
- 25
- Issue
- 4
- Pages
- 413-420
- ISSN
- 1049-8001 (ISSN-L)
- 1448-5516
- OpenAlex
- W2294271061
- Cited by
- 72
- References
- 34
- Citations by year
- 2026: 1 · 2025: 4 · 2024: 4 · 2023: 8 · 2022: 3 · 2021: 5 · 2020: 14 · 2019: 10 · 2018: 12 · 2017: 7 · 2016: 3
- FWCI
- 7.91
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Locations
- International Journal of Wildland Fire (publishedVersion)
- Funders
- U.S. Geological Survey
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Fire effects on ecosystems
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Ecology › Rangeland and Wildlife Management
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Epidemiology › Burn Injury Management and Outcomes
- Keywords
- burned area, fire trends, Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity, Normalized Burn Ratio, vegetation classification, contiguous United States, fire history, Mann-Kendall test
About these checks
Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.
Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.
Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.
What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›
Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review
