ArticleNature communications2025
A fire deficit persists across diverse North American forests despite recent increases in area burned.
Article in Nature communications, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 12 papers.
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Who cites it
12 citing papers in PubMed.
- DNA metabarcoding reveals key floral resources for native pollinators in post-fire landscapes.Ecological applications : a publication of the Ecological Society of America · 2026Article
- Recent high-severity wildfires in a dry-conifer landscape are unprecedented over five centuries and foretell future forest loss.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2026Article
- Response of the surface-active beetle community (Coleoptera) to mixed-conifer forest restoration thinning and burning treatments in northern New Mexico, USA.Environmental entomology · 2026Article
- Heatwaves enable wildfire activity in the western United States.Science advances · 2026Article
- Canada's Forests Are Shifting From a Recovery-Driven Carbon Sink to a Disturbance-Driven Carbon Source.Global change biology · 2026Article
- Exposure of western United States bird communities to predicted high severity fire.Nature communications · 2026Article
- Reforestation following megafires in boreal forests: silvicultural challenges and available tools.New forests · 2026Review
- Rising rates of wildfire building destruction in the conterminous United States.Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America · 2025Article
- The role of fire on Earth.Bioscience · 2025Review
- High-resolution Canada domain disturbance forcings suitable for land surface modeling applications.Scientific data · 2025Article
- Intensifying Fire Season Aridity Portends Ongoing Expansion of Severe Wildfire in Western US Forests.Global change biology · 2025Article
- Climate change has increased the odds of extreme regional forest fire years globally.Nature communications · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
19 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Rapid increases in wildfire area burned across North American forests pose novel challenges for managers and society. Increasing area burned raises questions about whether, and to what degree, contemporary fire regimes (1984-2022) are still departed from historical fire regimes (pre-1880). We use the North American tree-ring fire-scar network (NAFSN), a multi-century record comprising >1800 fire-scar sites spanning diverse forest types, and contemporary fire perimeters to ask whether there is a contemporary fire surplus or fire deficit, and whether recent fire years are unprecedented relative to historical fire regimes. Our results indicate, despite increasing area burned in recent decades, that a widespread fire deficit persists across a range of forest types and recent years with exceptionally high area burned are not unprecedented when considering the multi-century perspective offered by fire-scarred trees. For example, 'record' contemporary fire years such as 2020 burned 6% of NAFSN sites-the historical average-well below the historical maximum of 29% sites that burned in 1748. Although contemporary fire extent is not unprecedented across many North American forests, there is abundant evidence that unprecedented contemporary fire severity is driving forest loss in many ecosystems and adversely impacting human lives, infrastructure, and water supplies.
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