Busby Sebastian U, Fried Jeremy S
United States Department of Agriculture Forest Service, Pacific Northwest Research Station, Portland Oregon, United States of America.
Oak Ridge Institute for Science and Education, Oak Ridge Tennessee, United States.
PLoS One. 2025 Sep 8;20(9):e0332158. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0332158. eCollection 2025.
Increasing wildfire activity in mesic, temperate Pacific Northwest forests west of the Cascade Range crest has stimulated interest in understanding whether alternative forest management practices could reduce risk of stand-replacing fire. To explore how management can enhance fire resistance in these forests and assess tradeoffs among resistance enhancement, carbon sequestration and storage, and economic returns, we conducted 40-year simulations of stand development with BioSum, a framework for conducting landscape analysis with the Forest Vegetation Simulator (FVS), utilizing a statistically representative and spatially balanced sample of Forest Inventory and Analysis (FIA) plots. Simulation outcomes under business-as-usual silviculture were contrasted with fire-aware silviculture, and treatment optimization logic was developed and applied to represent landscape-scale outcomes under business-as-usual and fire-focused management scenarios. Simulation results indicate that fire-aware prescriptions and fire-focused management can meaningfully enhance stand- and landscape-scale fire resistance of westside forests under less than extreme fire weather, but at the cost of lower economic returns and reduced net carbon storage and sequestration over the 40-year analysis window. Shifting from business-as-usual regeneration harvests with short rotations to fire-aware, episodic selection harvest improved fire resistance the most, especially in young privately-owned forests, and with only modest tradeoffs in carbon and economic outcomes. While fire-aware treatments generally reduced net present value from forest operations over business-as-usual, most treatments still generated positive net present value and could be implemented without subsidy. Fire-aware prescriptions that removed and utilized non-merchantable harvest residues instead of burning them, via either pile or broadcast burning, partially mitigated carbon emissions associated with fire-aware treatments, with about the same improvement in fire resistance. Given the currently limited institutional and financial capacity to implement fire resistance enhancing treatments at scale, the insights from this analysis may aid managers seeking to elevate fire resistance to prioritize where and how to manage.
喀斯喀特山脉山脊以西的湿润温带太平洋西北地区森林中，野火活动日益频繁，这激发了人们对于了解替代森林管理措施是否能够降低林分更替火灾风险的兴趣。为了探究管理如何增强这些森林的耐火性，并评估耐火性增强、碳固存与储存以及经济回报之间的权衡，我们使用BioSum进行了40年的林分发育模拟，BioSum是一个利用森林植被模拟器（FVS）进行景观分析的框架，采用了森林资源清查与分析（FIA）样地具有统计代表性且空间平衡的样本。将常规造林方式下的模拟结果与注重火灾的造林方式进行对比，并开发和应用处理优化逻辑来呈现常规管理和以火灾为重点的管理情景下的景观尺度结果。模拟结果表明，在不太极端的火灾天气条件下，注重火灾的采伐方案和以火灾为重点的管理能够显著增强西侧森林的林分和景观尺度耐火性，但代价是在40年的分析期内经济回报降低，净碳储存和固存减少。从短轮伐期的常规更新采伐转向注重火灾的间歇性择伐，对耐火性的提升最为显著，尤其是在年轻的私有林中，且在碳和经济成果方面仅有适度的权衡。虽然注重火灾的处理方式通常会使森林经营的净现值低于常规方式，但大多数处理方式仍能产生正的净现值，且无需补贴即可实施。通过堆烧或散布燃烧去除并利用非商品材采伐剩余物而非焚烧的注重火灾的采伐方案，部分减轻了与注重火灾的处理方式相关的碳排放，同时耐火性提升程度大致相同。鉴于目前大规模实施增强耐火性处理的机构和财政能力有限，本分析所得见解可能有助于寻求提高耐火性的管理者确定管理的地点和方式的优先级。
