Differences in wildfires among ecoregions and land management agencies in the Sierra Nevada region, California, USA

Recent research has indicated that in most of the western United States, fire size is increasing, large fires are becoming more frequent, and in at least some locations percentage of high-severity fire is also increasing. These changes in the contemporary fire regime are largely attributed to both changing climate and land management practices, including suppression of fires and past timber harvesting, over the last century. Fire management, including suppression and using wildfire for resource benefits, varies among federal land management agencies, yet no published studies have directly compared fire statistics between federal land management agencies in our study area. The primary response to wildfire on Forest Service areas is immediate suppression, while the National Park Service is more likely to use wildfire for resource benefits. We use fire perimeters and satellite-derived estimates of fire severity to compare fire statistics for wildfires (fire size, percentage of high-severity fire and high-sev...

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