Resistance of the boreal forest to high burn rates
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Significance: Climate change is expected to drastically increase both fire size and the frequency of large-fire years in the North American boreal forest, with consequent effects on forest ecosystems and carbon stocks. However, the influence of fire size and time since previous fire on fire activity is poorly understood because of incomplete records of past fire overlaps. Here we reconstruct the length of overlapping fires during the last 200 years along a 190-km transect and provide direct field evidence that extreme burn rates can be sustained by occasional droughts triggering immense fires. Fire occurrence in the most fire-prone regions of the North American boreal forest is, however, already fuel-limited and will resist further climate change because of overabundant young forest stands.
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Some ecosystems demonstrate negative fire-vegetation feedbacks, whereby fire temporarily reduces fuel loading or flammability, which decreases the probability of repeat burning for a period of years to several decades.
“Some ecosystems demonstrate negative fire-vegetation feedbacks, whereby fire temporarily reduces fuel loading or flammability, which decreases the probability of repeat burning for a period of years to several decades (Figure 3).Such feedbacks are evident in boreal forests and several types of temperate coniferous forest (Heon, Arseneault, & Parisien, 2014;Parks et al., 2015).”
From Fire as a fundamental ecological process: Research advances and frontiers (2020) · cites this paper as Heon, Arseneault, & Parisien, 2014
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Fire as a fundamental ecological process: Research advances and frontiers
McLauchlan, K. K., Higuera, P. E., Miesel, J., Rogers, B. M., Schweitzer, J., Shuman, J. K., Tepley, A. J., Varner, J. M., Veblen, T. T., Adalsteinsson, S. A., et al. (2020) · Journal of Ecology · doi:10.1111/1365-2745.13403 · Cited by 729 · see citing works
“Such feedbacks are evident in boreal forests and several types of temperate coniferous forest (Heon, Arseneault, & Parisien, 2014; Parks et al., 2015).”
Parks, S. A., Holsinger, L. M., Miller, C., & Nelson, C. R. (2015) · Ecological Applications · doi:10.1890/14-1430.1 · Cited by 239 · see citing works
Williams, A. P., & Abatzoglou, J. T. (2016) · Current Climate Change Reports · doi:10.1007/s40641-016-0031-0 · Cited by 173 · see citing works
The North American tree‐ring fire‐scar network
Margolis, E. Q., Guiterman, C. H., Chavardès, R. D., Coop, J. D., Copes‐Gerbitz, K., Dawe, D. A., Falk, D. A., Johnston, J. D., Larson, E., Li, H., et al. (2022) · Ecosphere · doi:10.1002/ecs2.4159 · Cited by 75 · see citing works
Self-citation
- Authors
- Héon, J., Arseneault, D., & Parisien, M.-A.
- Affiliations
- Université du Québec à Rimouski (CA)
- Canadian Forest Service (CA)
- Venue
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- Publisher
- National Academy of Sciences
- Published
- 2014-09-08
- Volume
- 111
- Issue
- 38
- Pages
- 13888-13893
- ISSN
- 0027-8424 (ISSN-L)
- 1091-6490
- PMC
- PMC4183332
- OpenAlex
- W1975910192
- Cited by
- 170
- References
- 0
- Citations by year
- 2026: 11 · 2025: 12 · 2024: 10 · 2023: 15 · 2022: 15 · 2021: 17 · 2020: 11 · 2019: 16 · 2018: 19 · 2017: 11 · 2016: 14 · 2015: 17 · 2014: 1 · 2013: 1
- FWCI
- 11.85
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- green
- www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov
- Locations
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (publishedVersion)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Fire effects on ecosystems
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Plant Water Relations and Carbon Dynamics
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Forest Management and Policy
- Keywords
- boreal forest, forest fires, burning rate, fire size, fire recurrence, drought, young forest stands, fire regime reconstruction, climate change projections
- MeSH terms
- Carbon, Fires, North America, Forests
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