Swain Daniel L, Abatzoglou John T, Kolden Crystal, Shive Kristen, Kalashnikov Dmitri A, Singh Deepti, Smith Edward
Institute of the Environment and Sustainability, University of California, Los Angeles, Los Angeles, CA USA.
Capacity Center for Climate and Weather Extremes, National Center for Atmospheric Research, Boulder, CO USA.
Commun Earth Environ. 2023;4(1):340. doi: 10.1038/s43247-023-00993-1. Epub 2023 Oct 3.
Escalating wildfire activity in the western United States has accelerated adverse societal impacts. Observed increases in wildfire severity and impacts to communities have diverse anthropogenic causes-including the legacy of fire suppression policies, increased development in high-risk zones, and aridification by a warming climate. However, the intentional use of fire as a vegetation management tool, known as "prescribed fire," can reduce the risk of destructive fires and restore ecosystem resilience. Prescribed fire implementation is subject to multiple constraints, including the number of days characterized by weather and vegetation conditions conducive to achieving desired outcomes. Here, we quantify observed and projected trends in the frequency and seasonality of western United States prescribed fire days. We find that while ~2 C of global warming by 2060 will reduce such days overall (-17%), particularly during spring (-25%) and summer (-31%), winter (+4%) may increasingly emerge as a comparatively favorable window for prescribed fire especially in northern states.
美国西部野火活动的不断升级加速了对社会的不利影响。观察到的野火严重程度增加以及对社区的影响有多种人为原因，包括灭火政策的遗留问题、高风险地区开发的增加以及气候变暖导致的干旱化。然而，将火作为一种植被管理工具的有意使用，即“规定火烧”，可以降低破坏性火灾的风险并恢复生态系统的恢复力。规定火烧的实施受到多种限制，包括以有利于实现预期结果的天气和植被条件为特征的天数。在此，我们量化了美国西部规定火烧天数的频率和季节性的观察到的和预测的趋势。我们发现，到2060年全球变暖约2摄氏度将总体上减少此类天数（-17%），特别是在春季（-25%）和夏季（-31%），而冬季（+4%）可能会越来越成为规定火烧相对有利的窗口，尤其是在北部各州。
