Landscape-level effectiveness of fuel treatments in a forest-dominated ecosystem in the Southern United States.

ABSTRACT: Wildfire has become an increasing threat to natural ecosystems and human livelihood alike in many parts of the world. Vegetation fuel treatments are considered a viable option for mitigating wildfire risk and damage; yet existing studies have yielded mixed or inconclusive results on fuel treatment effectiveness especially at the landscape level. Using fire behavior simulations and statistical analysis of simulation outputs, we assessed landscape-level effectiveness of prescribed burning (PB) and thinning from below (TFB) relative to their site-level effectiveness in terms of area burned (AB) and total cost of treatment and timber loss (TC) in a forest-dominated ecosystem in the southern United States. We found that effectiveness of a treatment varied with measurement metrics and extent, ve

SUBMITTER: Choi J 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC12904393 | biostudies-literature | 2026

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature