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severe fire behaviorSevere fire is an important component of most fire regimes in the western United States. Approximately 85% of all western US forests fall into mixed-severity fire regimes. Historically, some forests, and parts of all fires, burned with high severity, creating a complex mosaic across the landscape. Severe fires play an essential role in the ecology of mixed-conifer forests by creating unique conditions that many plant and animal species have evolved to depend on. However, contemporary fire management is often focused on the exclusion of severe fire, and many debate about the need for severe fires into the future.

Resources listed here contain the most recent and applicable information on this issue.

Wildfires may burn with lower severity when they burn where prior fires have burned recently. For more information, see our Effects of Repeated Fires hot topic.

This hot topic was developed in partnership with the University of Idaho.

Research Briefs

Technical Reports/White Papers

Publications

2024

Expanding our understanding of nitrogen dynamics after fire: how severe fire and aridity reduce ecosystem nitrogen retention
Maxwell Kay Strain et al.
Long-term sensitivity of ponderosa pine axial resin ducts to harvesting and prescribed burning
Lena Vilà-Vilardell et al.
Montane springs provide regeneration refugia after high-severity wildfire
Grace Peven et al.
Effects of a severe wildfire on a bat community in the Canadian Rocky Mountains
E. B. Low et al.

2023

Snag-fall patterns following stand-replacing fire vary with stem characteristics and topography in subalpine forests of Greater Yellowstone
Nathan G. Kiel et al.

2022

Fire ecology for the 21st century: conserving biodiversity in the age of megafire
Dale G. Nimmo et al.

2020

Wildfire-driven forest conversion in western North American landscapes
Jonathan D. Coop et al.
Patterns of bird species occurrence in relation to anthropogenic and wildfire disturbance: management implications
Richard L. Hutto et al.

2018

Defining Extreme Wildfire Events: Difficulties, Challenges, and Impacts
Fantina Tedim et al.

2017

Indicators of burn severity at extended temporal scales: A decade of ecosystem response in mixed conifer forests of western Montana
Sarah A. Lewis et al.

2016

Tamm Review: Management of mixed-severity fire regime forests in Oregon, Washington, and Northern California
Paul F. Hessburg et al.
Avian relationships with wildfire at two dry forest locations with different historical fire regimes
Quresh Latif et al.
Toward a more ecologically informed view of severe forest fires
Richard L. Hutto et al.

2015

Vegetation response to burn severity, native grass seeding, and salvage logging
Penelope Morgan et al.
Chapter 3: Using bird ecology to learn about the benefits of severe fire
Richard L. Hutto et al.
Fire legacies impact conifer regeneration across environmental gradients in the U.S. northern Rockies
Kerry Kemp et al.
Bark beetles and wildfires: how does forest recovery change with repeated disturbances in mixed-conifer forests?
Camille Stevens-Rumann et al.

2014

Is proportion burned severely related to daily area burned?
Donovan Birch et al.
Examining historical and current mixed-severity fire regimes in ponderosa pine and mixed-conifer forests of western north America
Dennis C. Odion et al.

2012

Spatially extensive reconstructions show variable-severity fire and heterogeneous structure in historical western United States dry forests
William L. Baker et al.
A new forest fire paradigm: the need for high-severity fires
Monica L. Bond et al.
Wildfire severity mediates fluxes of plant material and terrestrial invertebrates to mountain streams
Breeanne K. Jackson et al.

2009

Sediment production following severe wildfire and post-fire salvage logging in the Rocky Mountain headwaters of the Oldman River Basin, Alberta
Uldis Silins et al.
Influence of wildfire severity on riparian plant community heterogeneity in an Idaho, USA wilderness
Breeanne K. Jackson et al.
Fire intensity, fire severity and burn severity: a brief review
Jon E. Keeley

2008

The ecological importance of severe wildfires: some like it hot
Richard L. Hutto

2007

Post-fire burn severity and vegetation response following eight large wildfires across the western United States
Leigh B. Lentile et al.

2005

Changes in bird abundance after wildfire: importance of fire severity and time since fire
Kristina M. Smucker et al.

2001

Effects of stand-replacement fire and salvage logging on a cavity-nesting bird community in eastern Cascades, Washington
Maryellen Haggard et al.

1999

Prefire heterogeneity, fire severity, and early postfire plant reestablishment in subalpine forests of Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming
Monica G. Turner et al.

1997

Effects of fire size and pattern on succession in Yellowstone National Park
Monica G. Turner et al.

Videos

Feb 19, 2019
Why We Can't Just Let Fire Burn

Feb 21, 2013
Forests born of fire

Past Events