Priority research directions for wildfire science: views from a historically fire-prone and an emerging fire-prone country

Fire regimes are changing across the globe, with new wildfire behaviour phenomena and increasing impacts felt, especially in ecosystems without clear adaptations to wildfire. These trends pose significant challenges to the scientific community in understanding and communicating these changes and their implications, particularly where we lack underlying scientific evidence to inform decision-making. Here, we present a perspective on priority directions for wildfire science research-through the lens of academic and government wildfire scientists from a historically wildfire-prone (USA) and emerging wildfire-prone (UK) country. Key topic areas outlined during a series of workshops in 2023 were as follows: (A) understanding and predicting fire occurrence, fire behaviour and fire impacts; (B) increasing human and ecosystem resilience to fire; and (C) understanding the atmospheric and climate impacts of fire. Participants agreed on focused research questions that were seen as priority scientific research gaps. Fire behaviour was identified as a central connecting theme that would allow critical advances to be made across all topic areas. These findings provide one group of perspectives to feed into a more transdisciplinary outline of wildfire research priorities across the diversity of knowledge bases and perspectives that are critical in addressing wildfire research challenges under changing fire regimes.This article is part of the theme issue 'Novel fire regimes under climate changes and human influences: impacts, ecosystem responses and feedbacks'.

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Publication Details

Journal
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences
Published
2025-04-01
DOI
https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2024.0001
Citations
9
Primary Topic
Fire effects on ecosystems
Type
article
Field-Weighted Citation Impact
9.95

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article

Priority research directions for wildfire science: views from a historically fire-prone and an emerging fire-prone country

J. L. McCarty, Kerryn Little, Alistair M. S. Smith, Gail Millin-Chalabi et al.
9 citations
Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological Sciences
Fire effects on ecosystems
9.95
article

Priority research directions for wildfire science: views from a historically fire-prone and an emerging fire-prone country

J. L. McCarty, Kerryn Little, Alistair M. S. Smith, Gail Millin-Chalabi, Tim Brown, Apostolos Voulgarakis, Gareth D. Clay, Kevin J. Tansey, Michelle C. Mack, W. Matt Jolly, Adriana E. S. Ford, Stefan H. Doerr, Stacey New, Kimberley J. Simpson, Eric B. Kennedy, Cathelijne R. Stoof, Andy Elliott, Peter Z. Fulé, Katy Ivison, Claire M. Belcher, Dylan W. Schwilk, Rob Gazzard, Matthew W. Jones, Rayanne Vitali, Sandy P. Harrison, Susan Page, Nicholas Kettridge, Crystal A. Kolden, James Morison, Adam F. A. Pellegrini, Fiona E. Newman Thacker, Tilly E. Hall
article en
9 citations

Abstract

Fire regimes are changing across the globe, with new wildfire behaviour phenomena and increasing impacts felt, especially in ecosystems without clear adaptations to wildfire. These trends pose significant challenges to the scientific community in understanding and communicating these changes and their implications, particularly where we lack underlying scientific evidence to inform decision-making. Here, we present a perspective on priority directions for wildfire science research-through the lens of academic and government wildfire scientists from a historically wildfire-prone (USA) and emerging wildfire-prone (UK) country. Key topic areas outlined during a series of workshops in 2023 were as follows: (A) understanding and predicting fire occurrence, fire behaviour and fire impacts; (B) increasing human and ecosystem resilience to fire; and (C) understanding the atmospheric and climate impacts of fire. Participants agreed on focused research questions that were seen as priority scientific research gaps. Fire behaviour was identified as a central connecting theme that would allow critical advances to be made across all topic areas. These findings provide one group of perspectives to feed into a more transdisciplinary outline of wildfire research priorities across the diversity of knowledge bases and perspectives that are critical in addressing wildfire research challenges under changing fire regimes.This article is part of the theme issue 'Novel fire regimes under climate changes and human influences: impacts, ecosystem responses and feedbacks'.

Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B Biological SciencesVol. 380(1924)
University of East Anglia (GB), Texas Tech University (US), Ames Research Center (US), Met Office (GB), Forestry Commission England (GB), University of Leicester (GB), University of Idaho (US), University of California, Merced (US), Durham University (GB), York University (CA), Northern Arizona University (US), Rhodes University (ZA), Aarhus University (DK), University of Exeter (GB), University of Cambridge (GB), University of Manchester (GB), Swansea University (GB), The Folklore Society (GB), Forest Research (GB), Rocky Mountain Research Station (US), Rocky Mountain Research (United States) (US), Imperial College London (GB), Technical University of Crete (GR), Desert Research Institute (US), University of Reading (GB), University of Birmingham (GB), University of Sheffield (GB), Wageningen University & Research (NL)
Sight Research UK, Natural Environment Research Council, HORIZON EUROPE European Innovation Council
Climate action
Openalex Percentile: Top 2%
Fire effects on ecosystems
9.95
DOIOpen Access PDFOpenAlex
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