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Reimagine fire science for the anthropocene

Journal Article · · PNAS Nexus
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  1. National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR), Boulder, CO (United States)
  2. Univ. of Colorado, Boulder, CO (United States)
  3. Colorado College, Colorado Springs, CO (United States)
  4. Univ. of Montana, Missoula, MT (United States)
  5. Southern Methodist Univ., Dallas, TX (United States)
  6. Texas Tech Univ., Lubbock, TX (United States)
  7. Univ. of California, Irvine, CA (United States)
  8. Univ. of Colorado, Boulder, CO (United States); National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), Boulder, CO (United States). NOAA Chemical Sciences Laboratory (CSL)
  9. Syracuse Univ., NY (United States)
  10. Univ. of Turin (Italy)
  11. North Carolina A & T State Univ., Greensboro, NC (United States)
  12. Oregon State Univ., Corvallis, OR (United States)
  13. Univ. of Washington, Seattle, WA (United States)
  14. Univ. of Colorado, Denver, CO (United States)
  15. Boise State Univ., ID (United States)
  16. Univ. of California, Santa Barbara, CA (United States)
  17. National Ecological Observatory Network, Boulder, CO (United States)
  18. Univ. of Nevada, Reno, NV (United States)
  19. Univ. of California, Merced, CA (United States)
  20. Point Blue Conservation Science, Petaluma, CA (United States)
  21. Western Colorado University, Gunnison, CO (United States)
  22. Atmospheric and Environmental Research, Inc., Lexington, MA (United States)
  23. San Diego State Univ., CA (United States)
  24. University of Northern Colorado, Greeley, CO (United States)
  25. Univ. of Colorado, Boulder, CO (United States); NOAA National Center for Environmental Information (NCEI), Boulder, CO (United States)
  26. The Ohio State Univ., Columbus, OH (United States)
  27. Cary Institute of Ecosystem Studies, Millbrook, NY (United States)
  28. Del Rosario University, Bogota (Columbia)
  29. Portland State Univ., OR (United States)
  30. Univ. of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM (United States)
  31. California State University, Sacremento, CA (United States)
  32. Univ. of Idaho, Moscow, ID (United States)
  33. Florida International Univ. (FIU), Miami, FL (United States)
  34. California State Univ. (CalState), Long Beach, CA (United States)
  35. USDA Forest Service, Flagstaff, AZ (United States). Rocky Mountain Research Station
  36. Univ. of Oklahoma, Norman, OK (United States)
  37. Univ. of Oregon, Eugene, OR (United States)
  38. Colorado State Univ., Fort Collins, CO (United States)
  39. US Geological Survey, Los Alamos, NM (United States). New Mexico Landscapes Field Station
  40. Miami Univ., Oxford, OH (United States)
  41. Montana State Univ., Bozeman, MT (United States)
  42. Univ. of California, Santa Cruz, CA (United States)
  43. Michigan State Univ., East Lansing, MI (United States)
  44. Univ. of Texas at Austin, TX (United States)
  45. Univ. of Cambridge (United Kingdom)
  46. NASA Goddard Space Flight Center (GSFC), Greenbelt, MD (United States)
  47. Tall Timbers Research Station and Land Conservancy, Tallahassee, FL (United States)
  48. Univ. of Notre Dame, IN (United States)
  49. Oak Ridge National Lab. (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
  50. Univ. of Nevada, Reno, NV (United States); Argentine Institute of Oceanography (IADO), Buenos Aires (Argentina)
  51. TerraPulse, Inc., North Potomac, MD (United States)
  52. Univ. of Maryland, College Park, MD (United States)
  53. NASA Langley Research Center, Hampton, VA (United States); National Institute of Aerospace (NIA), Hampton, VA (United States)
  54. Univ. of Arizona, Tucson, AZ (United States)
  55. Conservation Biology Institute, La Mesa, CA (United States)
  56. Univ. of California, Los Angeles, CA (United States)
  57. San Jose State Univ., CA (United States)
  58. Georgia Institute of Technology, Atlanta, GA (United States)
  59. Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison, WI (United States)
  60. USDA Forest Service, Reno, NV (United States). Rocky Mountain Research Station
+ Show Author Affiliations
Fire is an integral component of ecosystems globally and a tool that humans have harnessed for millennia. Altered fire regimes are a fundamental cause and consequence of global change, impacting people and the biophysical systems on which they depend. As part of the newly emerging Anthropocene, marked by human-caused climate change and radical changes to ecosystems, fire danger is increasing, and fires are having increasingly devastating impacts on human health, infrastructure, and ecosystem services. Increasing fire danger is a vexing problem that requires deep transdisciplinary, trans-sector, and inclusive partnerships to address. Here, we outline barriers and opportunities in the next generation of fire science and provide guidance for investment in future research. We synthesize insights needed to better address the long-standing challenges of innovation across disciplines to (i) promote coordinated research efforts; (ii) embrace different ways of knowing and knowledge generation; (iii) promote exploration of fundamental science; (iv) capitalize on the “firehose” of data for societal benefit; and (v) integrate human and natural systems into models across multiple scales. Fire science is thus at a critical transitional moment. We need to shift from observation and modeled representations of varying components of climate, people, vegetation, and fire to more integrative and predictive approaches that support pathways toward mitigating and adapting to our increasingly flammable world, including the utilization of fire for human safety and benefit. Only through overcoming institutional silos and accessing knowledge across diverse communities can we effectively undertake research that improves outcomes in our more fiery future.
Research Organization:
Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), Oak Ridge, TN (United States)
Sponsoring Organization:
NASA Arctic Boreal Vulnerability Experiment; National Science Foundation (NSF); USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER); University of Colorado
Grant/Contract Number:
AC05-00OR22725
OSTI ID:
1883836
Journal Information:
PNAS Nexus, Journal Name: PNAS Nexus Journal Issue: 3 Vol. 1; ISSN 2752-6542
Publisher:
Oxford University PressCopyright Statement
Country of Publication:
United States
Language:
English

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Related Subjects

54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
climate change
resilience
social-ecological systems
wildfire
wildland-urban interface