Climate Change Impacts on Fire Return Intervals
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In recent years, Alaska has seen the largest (2004), second largest (2015), third largest (2005) and sixth largest (2009) fire years since 1940, and observed increases in area burned in Canada during the last four decades are linked with warming summer season temperatures. To the surprise and concern of fire and resource managers, some of these fires burned across fire scars from the previous decade or decades, an uncharacteristic phenomenon in boreal forests. This project is assessing the ecological and management implications of repeat fires. Funding from the NWB LCC is contributing to a large effort to model the conditions under which new fires burn into older fires, the behavior of those fires, and the potential ecological effects of repeat burns across lowland and upland boreal forests across many locations in Alaska.
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A once burned white spruce stand 8 years after the Chakina fire in Wrangell-St. Elias is thick with fireweed, aspen, willow and young white spruce trees in the understory. Photo: Jennifer Barnes/NPS
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