Under a warming climate, wildfires in Oregon's southern Blue Mountains will become more frequent, more extensive and more severe, according to a new Portland State University-led study.
Under a warming climate, wildfires in Oregon's southern Blue Mountains will become more frequent, more extensive and more severe, according to a new Portland State University-led study.
Researchers from PSU, North Carolina State University, University of New Mexico and the U.S. Forest Service looked at how climate-driven changes in forest dynamics and wildfire activity will affect the landscape through the year 2100. They used a forest landscape model, LANDIS-II, to simulate forest and fire dynamics under current management practices and two projected climate scenarios.
Among the study's findings:
- Even if the climate stopped warming now, high-elevation species such as whitebark pine, Engelmann spruce and sub-alpine fir will be largely replaced by more climate- and fire-resilient species like ponderosa pine and Douglas fir by the end of the century.
- A growing population of shade-loving grand fir that has been expanding in the understory of the forest was also projected to increase, even under hotter and drier future climate conditions, which provided fuels that helped spread wildfires and made fires even more severe.
Read more at Portland State University
Photo: A mosaic of burn patches of different fire severities in a primarily ponderosa pine forest is shown six months after the Canyon Creek Complex wildfire. (Courtesy of Brooke Cassell)
