High-severity wildfires in temperate Australian forests have increased in extent and aggregation in recent decades

• DOI: 10.1371/journal.pone.0242484
• Publication Date: 2020-11-18T19:14:19Z
• Authors: Bang Nguyen Tran; Mihai A. Tanase; Lauren T. Bennett; Cristina Aponte
• Keywords: Biome; Temperate rainforest; Fire regime; Temperate forest; Forest dynamics; Fire ecology

Wildfires have increased in size and frequency recent decades many biomes, but they also become more severe? This question remains under-examined despite fire severity being a critical aspect of regimes that indicates impacts on ecosystem attributes associated post-fire recovery. We conducted retrospective analysis wildfires larger than 1000 ha south-eastern Australia to examine the extent spatial pattern high-severity burned areas between 1987 2017. High-severity maps were generated from Landsat remote sensing imagery. Total proportional area through time. The number patches per year remained unchanged variability patch increased, became aggregated irregular shape. Our results confirm southern severe. shift regime may consequences for dynamics, as fire-adapted temperate forests are likely be at high severities relative historical ranges, trend seems set continue under projections hotter, drier climate Australia.