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reburn bob marshall_0.JPGPrevious fires can influence the behavior subsequent wildfires. In many cases, previous fires have been shown to reduce the spread and severity of subsequent wildfires on the landscape, thereby serving as a natural fuel treatment. The influence exerted by previous fires varies with climate, location, time since fire, and vegetation, among other factors.

An understanding of the potential impacts of previous fires on the characteristics of subsequent fires is important in informing land management decisions, developing fuel management strategies, and allocating fire-fighting resources. The increasing size and extent of wildfires in the Northern Rockies region over the past several decades makes this topic even more relevant as fires become more and more likely to burn into previously burned areas.

The resources curated here contain the most recent and applicable information on this issue.  

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

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Publications

2024

Few large or many small fires: Using spatial scaling of severe fire to quantify effects of fire-size distribution shifts
Michele S. Buonanduci et al.
A modest increase in fire weather overcomes resistance to fire spread in recently burned boreal forests
Ellen Whitman et al.

2023

Mesic mixed-conifer forests are resilient to both historical high-severity fire and contemporary reburns in the US Northern Rocky Mountains
Melissa Jaffe et al.
What is the color when black is burned? Quantifying (re)burn severity using field and satellite remote sensing indices
Saba Saberi et al.

2022

Fire ecology for the 21st century: conserving biodiversity in the age of megafire
Dale G. Nimmo et al.
A short-interval reburn catalyzes departures from historical structure and composition in a mesic mixed-conifer forest
Tyler J. Hoecker et al.
Previous wildfires and management treatments moderate subsequent fire severity
C. Alina Cansler et al.

2021

Where and why do conifer forests persist in refugia through multiple fire events?
William M. Downing et al.

2020

Wildland fire reburning trends across the US West suggest only short-term negative feedback and differing climatic effects
Brian Buma et al.
Repeated Fire Shifts Carbon and Nitrogen Cycling by Changing Plant Inputs and Soil Decomposition Across Ecosystems
Adam F. A. Pellegrini et al.
Strong Legacy Effects of Prior Burn Severity on Forest Resilience to a High-Severity Fire
Lucas B. Harris et al.
Fuel dynamics following wildfire in US northern Rockies forests
Camille Stevens-Rumann et al.
Fine‐scale fire patterns mediate forest structure in frequent‐fire ecosystems
Scott M. Ritter et al.
Limited Effects of Long-Term Repeated Season and Interval of Prescribed Burning on Understory Vegetation Compositional Trajectories and Indicator Species in Ponderosa Pine Forests of Northeastern Oregon, USA
Harold S. Zald et al.

2019

Short-interval severe fire erodes the resilience of subalpine lodgepole pine forests
Monica G. Turner et al.
Characterizing persistent unburned islands within the Inland Northwest USA
Anthony Martinez et al.
Improving long-term fuel treatment effectiveness in the National Forest System through quantitative prioritization
Ana M. G. Barros et al.
Got shrubs? Precipitation mediates long-term shrub and introduced grass dynamics in chaparral communities after fire
April G. Smith et al.
The role of previous fires in the management and expenditures of subsequent large wildfires
Erin J. Belval et al.
Repeated fires reduce plant diversity in low‐elevation Wyoming big sagebrush ecosystems (1984–2014)
Adam L. Mahood et al.

2018

Interactions between large high-severity fires and salvage logging on a short return interval reduce the regrowth of fire-prone serotinous forests
Angela Taboada et al.
Fire frequency drives decadal changes in soil carbon and nitrogen and ecosystem productivity
Adam F. A. Pellegrini et al.
Fine‐scale spatial climate variation and drought mediate the likelihood of reburning
Sean A. Parks et al.
Long-term herpetofaunal response to repeated fuel reduction treatments
Cathryn H. Greenberg et al.
How does forest recovery following moderate-severity fire influence effects of subsequent wildfire in mixed-conifer forests?
Brandon M. Collins et al.
Fine-scale spatial climate variation and drought mediate the likelihood of reburning
Sean A. Parks et al.
The nature of the beast: examining climate adaptation options in forests with stand‐replacing fire regimes
Joshua S. Halofsky et al.

2017

Long-term effects of burn season and frequency on ponderosa pine forest fuels and seedlings
Douglas J. Westlind et al.
Black carbon on coarse woody debris in once- and twice- burned mixed conifer forest
Aspen Ward et al.
Fire Effects on Historical Wildfire Refugia in Contemporary Wildfires
Crystal A. Kolden et al.

2016

Quantifying the influence of previously burned areas on suppression effectiveness and avoided exposure: a case study of the Las Conchas Fire
Matthew P. Thompson et al.
Repeated wildfires alter forest recovery of mixed-conifer ecosystems
Camille Stevens-Rumann et al.
Replacing time with space: using laboratory fires to explore the effects of repeated burning on black carbon degradation
Wade T. Tinkham et al.
Prior wildfires influence burn severity of subsequent large fires
Camille Stevens-Rumann et al.
Wildland fire limits subsequent fire occurrence
Sean A. Parks et al.

2015

Wildland fire as a self-regulating mechanism: the role of previous burns and weather in limiting fire progression
Sean A. Parks et al.
Temporal fuel dynamics following high-severity fire in dry mixed conifer forests of the eastern Cascades, Oregon, USA
Christopher J. Dunn 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.
Investigating the effects of forest structure on the small mammal community in frequent-fire coniferous forests using capture-recapture models for stratified populations
Rahel Sollmann et al.

2014

Previous fires moderate burn severity of subsequent wildland fires in two large western US wilderness areas
Sean A. Parks et al.

2013

Wilderness shapes contemporary fire size distributions across landscapes of the western United States
Sandra L. Haire et al.

2012

Characterizing fire-on-fire interactions in three large wilderness areas
Casey Teske et al.

2010

The forgotten stage of forest succession: early-successional ecosystems on forest sites
Mark E. Swanson et al.

2006

Frequent fire alters nitrogen transformations in ponderosa pine stands of the inland Northwest
Thomas H. DeLuca et al.

1994

Sediment transport in a small stream following two successive forest fires
Kenneth G. Beaty

1992

Effects of multiple fires on nutrient yields from streams draining boreal forest and fen watersheds: nitrogen and phosphorus
Suzanne E. Bayley et al.