Area burned in the western United States is unaffected by recent mountain pine beetle outbreaks
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Significance: Across western North America, abundant susceptible pine hosts and a suitable climate during the early 21st century have promoted widespread mountain pine beetle (MPB) outbreaks, leading to concern that dead fuels may increase wildfire risk. The assumption that outbreaks raise fire risk is driving far-reaching policy decisions involving expenditures of hundreds of millions of dollars. Contrary to the expectation that an MPB outbreak increases fire risk, spatial overlay analysis shows no effect of outbreaks on subsequent area burned during years of extreme burning across the West. These results refute the assumption that increased bark beetle activity has increased area burned; therefore, policy discussions should focus on societal adaptation to the effects of the underlying drivers: warmer temperatures and increased drought.
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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 [30]
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- Authors
- Hart, S. J., Schoennagel, T., Veblen, T. T., & Chapman, T. B.
- Affiliations
- University of Colorado Boulder (US)
- Institute of Arctic and Alpine Research (US)
- Venue
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- Publisher
- National Academy of Sciences
- Published
- 2015-03-23
- Volume
- 112
- Issue
- 14
- Pages
- 4375-4380
- ISSN
- 0027-8424 (ISSN-L)
- 1091-6490
- PMC
- PMC4394269
- OpenAlex
- W1992901531
- Cited by
- 128
- References
- 37
- Citations by year
- 2026: 3 · 2025: 4 · 2024: 9 · 2023: 3 · 2022: 11 · 2021: 16 · 2020: 14 · 2019: 13 · 2018: 15 · 2017: 12 · 2016: 28
- FWCI
- 15.03
- 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)
- Funders
- Wilburforce Foundation (UNIVE1303)
- National Science Foundation (1262687)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Fire effects on ecosystems
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Ecology › Forest Insect Ecology and Management
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Plant Water Relations and Carbon Dynamics
- Keywords
- mountain pine beetle, bark beetle outbreaks, forest mortality, dead fuel, fire behavior, global warming, drought, western United States forests, wildfire policy
- MeSH terms
- Animals, Coleoptera, Disease Outbreaks, Fires, Geography, Temperature, Trees, United States, Pinus, Droughts, Forests
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