Publications - Forest Fires

International cooperation in boreal forest fire research: the IBFRA Stand Replacement Fire Working Group

Fri, 21 Jul 2000

Fire behavior in three jack pine fuel complexes. (Poster with text)

Wed, 26 Nov 2008

Fire behavior in three jack pine fuel complexes

Fri, 21 Jul 2000

Biomass consumption and behavior of wildland fires in boreal, temperate, and tropical ecosystems: parameters necessary to interpret historic fire regimes and future fire scenarios

Mon, 21 Jul 2003

El sistema Canadiense de evaluacion del grado de peligro de incendios forestales: Una vision general

Sat, 26 Aug 2000

The Canadian Forest Fire Danger Rating System: an overview.

Tue, 22 Aug 2000

Forest fire danger rating research in Canada was initiated by the federal government in 1925. Five different fire danger rating systems have been developed since that time, each with increasing universal applicability across Canada. The approach has been to build on previous danger rating systems in an evolutionary fashion and to use field experiments and empirical analysis extensively. The current system, the Canadian Forest Fire Danger Rating System (CFFDRS), has been under development by Forestry Canada since 1968. The first major subsystem of the CFFDRS, the Canadian Forest Fire Weather Index (FWI) System, provides numerical ratings of relative fire potential based solely on weather observations, and has been in use throughout Canada since 1970. The second major subsystem, the Canadian Forest Fire Behavior Prediction (FBP) System, accounts for variability in fire behavior among fuel types (predicting rate of spread, fuel consumption, and frontal fire intensity), was issued in interim form in 1984 with final production scheduled for 1990. A third major CFFDRS subsystem, the Canadian Forest Fire Occurrence Prediction (FOP) System, is currectly being formulated. This paper briefly outline the history and philosophy of fire danger rating research in Canada discussing in detail the structure of the current CFFDRS and its application and use by fire management agencies throughout Canada.

The Canadian system of forest fire danger rating

Thu, 03 Jan 2002

Some potential carbon budget implications of fire management in the boreal forest

Fri, 30 Nov 2001

Large forest fires in Canada, 1959-1997

Thu, 18 Sep 2003

The Canada/United States cooperative mass fire behaviour and atmospheric environmental impact study

Mon, 21 Jul 2003

A photo-series for assessing fuels in natural forest stands in northern Ontario. COFRDA 3304.

Fri, 21 Jul 2000

Forest fire management in Canada

Wed, 19 Sep 2012

Canada's large forest reserves have always been intimately linked with the economic, social and cultural development of the country. Protection of these forests from unwanted wildfires has been the focus of extensive efforts throughout the 20th Century. Reconciling the natural role of fire in forest ecosystem maintenance with the need to protect forested lands that are valuable from an industrial and recreational perspective has been an ongoing concern, particularly during the past two decades. Canadian fire management and fire research agencies have developed highly sophisticated systems for predicting the occurrence, behaviour and impact of forest fires, and have been quite successful in controlling a large percentage of the fires that occur in high-value areas of the country. However, periodic extreme fire weather events, in combination with constrained protection budgets, ensure that wildfires will always be a major force in Canadian forests, and that society must adapt to this fact.

Fire management: Principles and options in the forested and savannah regions of the world

Mon, 21 Jul 2003

The 1980 forest fire season in west-central Canada: social, economic, and environmental impacts.

Tue, 31 May 2011

The 1980 forest fire season: it's impact in west-central Canada (based on an unpublished task force report)

Fri, 18 Jul 2003

Fire behavior and the dynamics of convection columns in African savannas

Fri, 21 Jul 2000

Fuels and fire behaviour dynamics on large-scale savanna fires in Kruger National Park, South Africa

Fri, 15 Oct 2010

The effect of green vegetation on surface fire spread in the laboratory.

Fri, 11 May 2012

Progress report. Forest fire research in Ontario.

Thu, 10 May 2012

Climate change, carbon sequestration, and forest fire protection in the Canadian boreal zone.

Thu, 31 Jan 2013

Boreal forests and peatlands in northern circumpolar areas, including Ontario, store globally significant amounts of carbon but are subject to forest fires and other natural disturbances that cycle carbon between terrestrial ecosystems and the atmosphere. Climate change projections for the 21st century suggest that wildland fire regimes will become more severe,with more fires, more extreme weather events, and the likelihood of increased area burned. Even if fire suppression resources are increased to cope with the changing fire conditions, suppression efforts will be challenged. Forest fires release significant amounts of greenhouse gases and under a more severe fire regime increased emissions are expected. Concerns over increasing greenhouse gas emissions, as well as the potential to achieve carbon offset credits through enhanced forest management practices, may lead resource management agencies to consider, as one of their options, increasing fire suppression efforts to reduce area burned and maintain carbon in storage. This policy option will be challenging in Ontario's fire-adapted forests, particularly in the Far North where most fires are not suppressed and a relatively natural fire regime is in place. Increasing fire suppression effectiveness in the boreal forest in response to a more severe fire regime will be expensive, operationally challenging, and may require trade offs between the goals of keeping carbon in storage and maintaining natural ecosystem functions. The effects of climate change on ecosystem processes and carbon storage in peatlands are not well understood, but the potential for more fire activity and resultant carbon losses, as well as irreversible ecosystem change, is high. As well, fire management strategies for peat and fuel types are not well developed. Fire management strategies in Ontario's forests and peatlands require review to balance future protection priorities, including carbon storage and fire management capabilities. Fire and forest managers will need to examine the role of fire in sustaining forest ecosystem health and resilience in a changing climate, and to better integrate forest and fire management principles, including the use of FireSmart forest management and other landscape design principles, to reduce the potential for large high intensity fires. This literature review and policy discussion is intended to provide Ontario's forest and fire managers with current scientific and policy information to inform future decision-making.

Boreal forest fire regimes and climate change.

Wed, 10 Oct 2001

Stretching in two broad transcontinental bands across Eurasia and North America, the global boreal zone covers approximately 12 million square kilometres, two-thirds in Russia and Scandinavia and the remainder in Canada and Alaska. Situated generally between 45 and 70 degrees north latitude, with northern and southern boundaries determined by the July 13°C and July 18°C isotherms respectively, the boreal zone contains extensive tracts of coniferous forest which provide a vital natural and economic resource for northern circumpolar countries. The export value of forest products from global boreal forests is ca. 47% of the world total (Kusela 1990, 1992).

The boreal forest is composed of hardy species of pine (Pinus), spruce (Picea), larch (Larix), and fir (Abies), mixed, usually after disturbance, with deciduous hardwoods such as birch (Betula), poplar (Populus), willow (Salix), and alder (Alnus), and interspersed with extensive lakes and organic terrain. This closed-crown forest, with its moist and deeply shaded forest floor where mosses predominate, is bounded immediately to the north by a lichen-floored open forest or woodland which in turn becomes progressively more open and tundra-dominated with increasing latitude. To the south the boreal forest zone is succeeded by temperate forests or grasslands.

Forest fire is the dominant disturbance regime in boreal forests, and is the primary process which organizes the physical and biological attributes of the boreal biome over most of its range, shaping landscape diversity and influencing energy flows and biogeochemical cycles, particularly the global carbon cycle since the last Ice Age. The physiognomy of the boreal forest is therefore largely dependent, at any given time, on the frequency, size and severity of forest fires. The overwhelming impact of wildfires on ecosystem development and forest composition in the boreal forest is readily apparent and understandable. Large contiguous expanses of even-aged stands of spruce and pine dominate the landscape in an irregular patchwork mosaic, the result of periodic severe wildfire years and a testimony to the adaptation of boreal forest species to natural fire over millennia. The result is a classic example of a fire dependent ecosystem, capable, during periods of extreme fire weather, of sustaining the very large, high intensity wildfires which are responsible for its existence.

This chapter presents data on recent and current trends in circumpolar boreal fire activity, with particular emphasis on Canada, Russia and Alaska, and describes the physical characteristics of boreal fires in terms of fuel consumption, spread rates, and energy release rates. The potential impact of a changing climate on boreal fire occurrence and severity, with resultant impacts on atmospheric chemistry and the global carbon budget, is discussed in detail, with reference to current research activities in this area.

Notes: Succession in unburned subarctic woodlands

Tue, 27 Jan 2004

A preliminary comparison of burned and unburned tracts in the northern boreal forest of the lower Mackenzie River valley indicates that, without periodic fires, trees will be eliminated and the climax vegetation will be a moss/lichen association. The implications for land management are adumbrated.

A model to assess fire danger using NOAA-AVHRR images.

Thu, 11 Oct 2001

Post-fire vegetation dynamics in upland black spruce stands in Ontario's clay belt. Frontline Technical Note 60.

Fri, 21 Jul 2000

Brown and burn efficacy and prescription development in the treatment of backlog NSR land

Sat, 26 Aug 2000