The REBURN model: simulating system-level forest succession and wildfire dynamics

Abstract Background Historically, reburn dynamics from cultural and lightning ignitions were central to the ecology of fire in western United States (wUS), whereby past effects limited future growth severity. Over millennia, reburns created heterogenous patchworks vegetation fuels that provided avenues impediments flow fires, feedbacks event sizes their severity patterns. These have been significantly altered after more than a century settler colonization, exclusion, forest management, now compounded by rapid climatic warming. Under climate change, area impacted large severe wildfires will likely increase — with further implications for self-regulating properties affected systems. An in-depth understanding influence on system-level provides baseline current landscape fire-vegetation interactions. Results Here, we present detailed characterization REBURN geospatial modeling framework designed simulate over areas long time frames. We interpret testbed eastern Washington State, USA. The is comprised common temperate nonforest types distributed along broad topo-edaphic gradients. Each pixel type represented pathway group (PWG), which assigns specific state-transition model (STM) based pixel’s biophysical setting. STMs represent daily simulated annually summarized fuel succession, wildfire succession. Wildfire are driven annual ignitions, weather topographic conditions, successional states burned unburned pixels. Conclusions Our simulation study first evaluate how exclusion management active regime this landscape, its surface canopy patterns, structural reburning. being used related studies change scenarios compare efficacy strategies either enable return regimes or depend suppression burning.