Macro-particle charcoal C content following prescribed burning in a mixed-conifer forest, Sierra Nevada, California.

ABSTRACT: Fire suppression and changing climate have resulted in increased large wildfire frequency and severity in the western United States, causing carbon cycle impacts. Forest thinning and prescribed burning reduce high-severity fire risk, but require removal of biomass and emissions of carbon from burning. During each fire a fraction of the burning vegetation and soil organic matter is converted into charcoal, a relatively stable carbon form. We sought to quantify the effects of pre-fire fuel load and type on charcoal carbon produced by biomass combusted in a prescribed burn under different thinning treatments and to identify more easily measured predictors of charcoal carbon mass in a historically frequent-fire mixed-conifer forest. We hypothesized that charcoal carbon produced from coarse woo

SUBMITTER: Wiechmann ML 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4530888 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature