Natural Wildfire Patterns

This project is investigating how & why individual forest fires burn what they do in Alberta and Saskatchewan. Survival patterns within wildfires create critical fine-scale diversity that many species rely on.

This research looks at how and why individual forest fires burn what they do and why, across Alberta and Saskatchewan. Survival patterns within wildfires create critical fine-scale diversity that many species rely on. Many also believe that maintaining natural levels of diversity is one of the keys to mitigating the effects of climate change.

Our partners are already using the results from this study to design harvesting residual patterns, often in combination with the NEPTUNE decision-support tool.

Selected Resources

Reports:

1. Disturbance Events on Foothills & Mountain Landscapes of Alberta: Part I
2. Island Remnants on Foothills & Mountain Landscapes of Alberta: Part II on Residuals
3. Wildfire Patterns in Western Boreal Canada

Manuscripts:

Andison, D.W.  2012.  The influence of wildfire boundary delineation on our understanding of burning patterns in the Alberta Foothills.  Canadian Journal of Forest Research. 42: 1253–1263.