Ladder fuels rather than canopy volumes consistently predict wildfire severity even in extreme topographic-weather conditions

Christopher R. Hakkenberg, Matthew L. Clark, Tim Bailey, Patrick Burns, Scott J. Goetz

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

Abstract

Drivers of forest wildfire severity include fuels, topography and weather. However, because only fuels can be actively managed, quantifying their effects on severity has become an urgent research priority. Here we employed GEDI spaceborne lidar to consistently assess how pre-fire forest fuel structure affected wildfire severity across 42 California wildfires between 2019–2021. Using a spatial-hierarchical modeling framework, we found a positive concave-down relationship between GEDI-derived fuel structure and wildfire severity, marked by increasing severity with greater fuel loads until a decline in severity in the tallest and most voluminous forest canopies. Critically, indicators of canopy fuel volumes (like biomass and height) became decoupled from severity patterns in extreme topographic and weather conditions (slopes >20°; winds > 9.3 m/s). On the other hand, vertical continuity metrics like layering and ladder fuels more consistently predicted severity in extreme conditions – especially ladder fuels, where sparse understories were uniformly associated with lower severity levels. These results confirm that GEDI-derived fuel estimates can overcome limitations of optical imagery and airborne lidar for quantifying the interactive drivers of wildfire severity. Furthermore, these findings have direct implications for designing treatment interventions that target ladder fuels versus entire canopies and for delineating wildfire risk across topographic and weather conditions.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Article number721
JournalCommunications Earth and Environment
Volume5
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Dec 2024

ASJC Scopus subject areas

  • General Environmental Science
  • General Earth and Planetary Sciences

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