This paper considers an atypical form of fire propagation, characterised by rapid lateral spread, and associated spot-fire development, across steep, lee-facing slopes. The role of wind, terrain and fire interaction in driving the phenomenon is investigated using weather, elevation and multispectral fire data and a likely explanation for the atypical spread is hypothesised.

Fire history mapping for 1990–2009 is used to quantify the mitigation of late dry-season wildfire (LDS) through prescribed burning in Western Arnhem Land. Prescribed burning can substantially reduce LDS area, by direct one-to-one replacement. A management program operating since 2005 has successfully reduced LDS using prescribed fire.

Conservation efforts on private land contribute to minimising biodiversity loss. These efforts also include maintaining ecological processes, such as fire. Fire management is complex and private landholders must balance conservation efforts with risks to life and property. Our research shows that fire is poorly understood potentially compromising management effectiveness.

This paper assesses post-fire changes in land surface temperature (LST) and surface albedo (α) using remotely sensed time series Lag, i.e. time since fire, and seasonal timing affected the magnitude of post-fire changes. Moreover, the seasonality constrains the suitability of the LST and α layers as indicators of fire severity and burn severity.

This study evaluates the potential of MODIS-derived spectral indices to predict live fuel moisture content of three different fire-prone vegetation types (i.e. shrubland, heathland and sclerophyll forest) in the Sydney Basin Bioregion (Australia).

South-western ponderosa pine stands attacked by bark beetles had higher tree densities compared to stands not attacked. Five years post-outbreak, after adjusting for differences in pre-outbreak tree density, attacked stands had lower tree densities and lower canopy fuel loadings, but higher surface fuel loadings than stands that were not attacked.

Spatial and temporal analysis of wildfire in Canada was completed to create baseline expectations of ignitions at 1-km spatial units. This baseline is used to delineate unique ignition regimes and explore anthropogenic influence on ignition expectation, variation and trend.

This research focussed on impediments to prescribed fire in northern California, USA, using a survey of fire managers from a range of management entities. Impediments vary by geographic region and entity, pointing to the importance of context in prescribed fire management.

Flame temperature profiles and flame-front residence times were measured from a series of experimental fires in dry eucalypt forest of different fuel age and structure. A method to estimate flame temperature at any height within the flame was developed. Average flame-front residence time for eucalypt forest fuels was 37 s.

Spatial point pattern analysis was used to quantify the spatial pattern of wildfire occurrences, and linear regression models were used to quantify the drought influence and temporal trends in annual number of wildfires and mean fire size from 1985 to 2007 in northern Wisconsin, USA.

Containment times of fires with aerial suppression were compared with estimated containment times for the same fires without aerial suppression. Fire managers believe that aircraft reduce time to containment when firefighting conditions are challenging owing to fuel hazard rating, weather conditions, ground response times and area burning at initial attack.

In the context of current and future warming conditions, predictions of fire activity in temperate rainforests forecast an increase in fire frequency and severity. This study uses tree-ring fire history records and reconstructed regional climate modes to examine past fire–climate relationships in temperate rainforests in western Patagonia.

Moisture content is a key factor in determining the ignition and spread of fires in live fuels. Rapid moisture analysers and oven-drying are commonly used to determine the live foliar moisture content but these two methods have never been compared. This paper shows that the two methods produce nearly identical measurements of moisture content over an entire growing season for a common conifer species.

Hydromulch effectiveness was compared at 50 and 100% treatments following the Cedar Fire. All treatments were effective in reducing erosion during the first winter; however, hydromulch broke down rapidly the first year, contributing to elevated sediment during heavy autumn rains. Growth of chamise and forbs was enhanced on hydromulch sites.

The flame model of Albini (1981, Combustion and Flame, doi:10.1016/0010-2180(81)90014-6) is used as a starting point for developing flame height and tilt angle models for wind-aided fires. Entrainment parameters are estimated using data from 54 fires burned in laboratory and field settings. Flame heights and air/fuel mass ratios are similar for wind-tunnel and field fires, but flame tilt angle relationships differ.

This paper constitutes a comprehensive review of the pitfalls associated with the inter-relationships among four widely used descriptors of surface fire behaviour and post-fire impacts in wildland fire science and management, namely fireline intensity, flame length, stem-bark char height and crown scorch height.

Post-fire tree mortality logistic regression models are an important tool in forest management. We review post-fire coniferous tree mortality logistic regression models in western USA and synthesise explanatory variables, model limitations, factors influencing model scope and model validation efforts. Considering previous use of logistic regression models, we recommend future research.

The purpose of this paper is to report on fire history research from three sites located along a 300-km north–south transect in central Mongolia and to highlight the potential of this region as a test case for understanding the relationships between climate change, fire and land use.

Two separate evaluations were undertaken of previously published regression equations used for predicting canopy base height, canopy fuel load and canopy bulk density from stand structure variables for four conifer forest types found in western North America. The first involved the application to simulating the effects of thinning. The second consisted of a direct comparison against an independent dataset. Considering their simplicity, the stand-level models for estimating canopy fuel stratum characteristics were found to be quite robust.

We analysed if wood piles built up as erosion barriers in burned areas determined the distribution of bird-dispersed plants. We found a higher cover of these plants within piles than outside them on the dry southern slopes. Therefore, wood piles are important to the occurrence of bird-dispersed plants in burned and managed Mediterranean forests.

Abundance of native perennial plants continued to decrease with subsequent fires, whereas abundance of the invasive annual grass Bromus rubens increased equally after single or multiple fires. Thus, revegetation of native perennials is most warranted following multiple fires and control of B. rubens is equally warranted after any fire.

Vegetation flammability was weakly dependent on time since last fire; extensively forested areas had short fire return intervals and a high dependence on fuel age; ignoring small fires has little or no effect on the estimates of Weibull function parameters; disregarding censored fire return intervals overestimates fire frequency.

Wildfires had a higher effect on gross ammonium transformation rates in soils than prescribed fires relative to their controls. Both types of fires significantly increased soil nitrate concentrations. This was not caused by increased nitrate production, but decreased nitrate uptake by soil microbes.

Can satellite products help managers accurately map fire boundaries? We tested the ability of burned area algorithms run on MODIS satellite data to identify burned areas in the Mediterranean shrublands of South Africa. To this end, we compared these satellite derived products with fire boundaries that had been carefully mapped in the field.