Skip to main content

Advertisement

SpringerLink
Log in

Drought and Fire in the Western USA: Is Climate Attribution Enough?

  • Climate Change and Drought (Q Fu, Section Editor)
  • Published:
Current Climate Change Reports Aims and scope Submit manuscript

Abstract

Purpose of Review

I sought to review the contributions of recent literature and prior foundational papers to our understanding of drought and fire. In this review, I summarize recent literature on drought and fire in the western USA and discuss research directions that may increase the utility of that body of work for twenty-first century application. I then describe gaps in the synthetic knowledge of drought-driven fire in managed ecosystems and use concepts from use-inspired research to describe potentially useful extensions of current work.

Recent Findings

Fire responses to climate, and specifically various kinds of drought, are clear, but vary widely with fuel responses to surplus water and drought at different timescales. Ecological and physical factors interact with human management and ignitions to create fire regime and landscape trajectories that challenge prediction.

Summary

The mechanisms by which the climate system affects regional droughts and how they translate to fire in the western USA need more attention to accelerate both forecasting and adaptation. However, projections of future fire activity under climate change will require integrated advances on both fronts to achieve decision-relevant modeling. Concepts from transdisciplinary research and coupled human-natural systems can help frame strategic work to address fire in a changing world.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Fig. 1

Similar content being viewed by others

References

Papers of particular interest, published recently, have been highlighted as: • Of importance •• Of major Importance

  1. • Moritz MA, Batllori E, Bradstock RA, Gill AM, Handmer J, Hessburg PF, et al. Learning to coexist with wildfire. Nature. 2014;515:58–66. https://doi.org/10.1038/nature13946. This paper highlights and substantiates the idea that wildland fire cannot be managed independently of its context as a social ecological system.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  2. Lee C, Schlemme C, Murray J, Unsworth R. The cost of climate change: ecosystem services and wildland fires. Ecol Econ. 2015;116:261–9. https://doi.org/10.1016/J.ECOLECON.2015.04.020.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  3. Ager AA, Barros AMG, Preisler HK, Day MA, Spies TA, Bailey JD, et al. Effects of accelerated wildfire on future fire regimes and implications for the United States federal fire policy. Ecol Soc. 2017;22:art12. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-09680-220412.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Bowman DMJS, Balch JK, Artaxo P, Bond WJ, Carlson JM, Cochrane MA, et al. Fire in the Earth System. Science (80- ). 2009;324:481–4. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1163886.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  5. Flannigan MD, Krawchuk MA, de Groot WJ, Wotton BM, Gowman LM. Implications of changing climate for global wildland fire. Int J Wildl Fire. 2009;18:483. https://doi.org/10.1071/WF08187.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  6. •• McKenzie D, Littell JS. Climate change and the eco-hydrology of fire: will area burned increase in a warming western USA. Ecol Appl. 2017;27:26–36. https://doi.org/10.1002/eap.1420. This paper underscores the non-stationarity in climate-fire relationships in the American West and shows that fuel- and flammability-limited systems may exhibit a wide range of behavior under climate change. It further argues that statistical climate-fire relationships are likely to be of limited use in a no-analog future.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  7. •• Schoennagel T, Balch JK, Brenkert-Smith H, Dennison PE, Harvey BJ, Krawchuk MA, et al. Adapt to more wildfire in western North American forests as climate changes. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2017;114:4582–90. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1617464114. This paper lays out the dimensions of problems confronted by people given current and future wildfire, and underscores the need for deliberate adaptation.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  8. Fu Q, Feng S. Responses of terrestrial aridity to global warming. J Geophys Res Atmos. 2014;119:7863–75. https://doi.org/10.1002/2014JD021608.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  9. Chapin FS, Trainor SF, Huntington O, Lovecraft AL, Zavaleta E, Natcher DC, et al. Increasing wildfire in Alaska’s boreal Forest: pathways to potential solutions of a wicked problem. Bioscience. 2008;58:531–40. https://doi.org/10.1641/B580609.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  10. Bowman DMJS, Murphy BP, Williamson GJ, Cochrane MA. Pyrogeographic models, feedbacks and the future of global fire regimes. Glob Ecol Biogeogr. 2014;23:821–4. https://doi.org/10.1111/geb.12180.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  11. • Fischer AP, Spies TA, Steelman TA, Moseley C, Johnson BR, Bailey JD, et al. Wildfire risk as a socioecological pathology. Front Ecol Environ. 2016;14:276–84. https://doi.org/10.1002/fee.1283. This paper refines the description of fire social-ecological systems and substantiates the case that fire is a coupled human-natural system.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  12. O’Connor CD, Garfin GM, Falk DA, Swetnam TW. Human pyrogeography: a new synergy of fire, climate and people is reshaping ecosystems across the globe. Geogr Compass. 2011;5:329–50. https://doi.org/10.1111/j.1749-8198.2011.00428.x.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  13. • DMJS B, Garnett ST, Barlow S, Bekessy SA, Bellairs SM, Bishop MJ, et al. Renewal ecology: conservation for the Anthropocene. Restor Ecol. 2017;25:674–80. https://doi.org/10.1111/rec.12560. This paper provides one conceptual framework for thinking about coupled human natural systems, especially ways in which fire can be embraced rather than managed by suppression.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  14. Pohl C, Hirsch Hadorn G. Principles for designing transdisciplinary research: proposed by the Swiss Academies of Arts and Sciences. München: oekom Verlag; 2007.

    Google Scholar 

  15. Pohl C, Hirsch Hadorn G. Methodological challenges of transdisciplinary research. Nat Sci Soc. 2008;16:111–21. https://doi.org/10.1051/nss:2008035.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  16. Keane RE, Ryan KC, Veblen TT, Allen CD, Logan J, Hawkes B. Cascading effects of fire exclusion in the Rocky Mountain ecosystems: a literature review. In: General Technical Report. RMRS-GTR-91. Fort Collins, CO: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station. 24 p. (Vol. 91); 2002. https://doi.org/10.2737/RMRS-GTR-91.

    Chapter  Google Scholar 

  17. Miller C. The hidden consequences of fire suppression. Park Science. 2012; 28(3). Online: http://www.nature.nps.gov/ParkScience/index.cfm?ArticleID=547&Page=1 . Retrieved from https://www.fs.usda.gov/treesearch/pubs/40395

  18. • Kitzberger T, Falk DA, Westerling AL, Swetnam TW. Direct and indirect climate controls predict heterogeneous early-mid 21st century wildfire burned area across western and boreal North America. PLoS One. 2017;12:e0188486. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0188486. This paper describes both human and climatic contributions to fire, and describes further the hazards of projecting statistical climate-fire relationships

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  19. •• Crausbay SD, Ramirez AR, Carter SL, Cross MS, Hall KR, Bathke DJ, et al. Defining ecological drought for the twenty-first century. Bull Am Meteorol Soc. 2017;98:2543–50. https://doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-16-0292.1. This paper expands the definition of drought to include ecological drought and its human dimensions.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  20. • Littell JS, Peterson DL, Riley KL, Liu Y, Luce CH. A review of the relationships between drought and forest fire in the United States. Glob Chang Biol. 2016;22:2353–69. This paper reviews application of physical, hydrologic, and ecohydrological drought mechanisms in fire research in the US.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  21. Dai A. Characteristics and trends in various forms of the palmer drought severity index during 1900–2008. J Geophys Res. 2011;116:D12115. https://doi.org/10.1029/2010JD015541.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  22. Westerling AL, Gershunov A, Brown TJ, Cayan DR, Dettinger MD, Westerling AL, et al. Climate and wildfire in the western United States. Bull Am Meteorol Soc. 2003;84:595–604. https://doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-84-5-595.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  23. Littell JS, Oneil EE, McKenzie D, Hicke JA, Lutz JA, Norheim RA, et al. Forest ecosystems, disturbance, and climatic change in Washington state, USA. Clim Chang. 2010;102:129–58. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-010-9858-x.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  24. Littell JS, Gwozdz RB (2011) Climatic water balance and regional fire years in the Pacific Northwest, USA: linking regional climate and fire at landscape scales. pp 117–139 in McKenzie, D C. Miller, and D.A. Falk, eds. The landscape ecology of fire, Dordrecht Springer Ltd.

    Google Scholar 

  25. McKenzie D, Littell JS. Climate change and wilderness fire regimes. Int J Wilderness. 2011;17:22–31.

    Google Scholar 

  26. Abatzoglou JT, Kolden CA. Relationships between climate and macroscale area burned in the western United States. Int J Wildl Fire. 2013;22:1003–20. https://doi.org/10.1071/WF13019.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  27. Sherwood S, Fu Q. A Drier future? Science. 2014;343(6172):737–9. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1247620.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  28. Breshears DD, Cobb NS, Rich PM, Price KP, Allen CD, Balice RG, et al. Regional vegetation die-off in response to global-change-type drought. Proc Natl Acad Sci. 2005;102:15144–8. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0505734102.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  29. Mo KC, Lettenmaier DP. Precipitation deficit flash droughts over the United States. J Hydrometeorol. 2016;17:1169–84. https://doi.org/10.1175/JHM-D-15-0158.1.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  30. Williams AP, Seager R, Berkelhammer M, Macalady AK, Crimmins MA, Swetnam TW, et al. Causes and implications of extreme atmospheric moisture demand during the record-breaking 2011 wildfire season in the Southwestern United States. J App Met Clim. 2014;53:2671–84. https://doi.org/10.1175/JAMC-D-14-0053.1.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  31. Marlier ME, Xiao M, Engel R, Livneh B, Abatzoglou JT, Lettenmaier DP. The 2015 drought in Washington state: a harbinger of things to come? Environ Res Lett. 2017;12:114008. https://doi.org/10.1088/1748-9326/aa8fde.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  32. • Harpold AA, Dettinger M, Rajagopal S. Defining snow drought and why it matters. Eos. 2017;98 https://doi.org/10.1029/2017EO068775. This paper clarifies terminology used for some time and distinguishes snow drought from – and relates it to other forms of drought.

  33. Westerling AL, Hidalgo HG, Cayan DR, Swetnam TW. Warming and earlier spring increase western U.S. forest wildfire activity. Science. 2006;313:940–3. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.1128834.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  34. Westerling AL. Increasing western US forest wildfire activity: sensitivity to changes in the timing of spring. Philos Trans R Soc Lond Ser B Biol Sci. 2016;371:20150178. https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2015.0178.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  35. Gergel DR, Nijssen B, Abatzoglou JT, Lettenmaier DP, Stumbaugh MR. Effects of climate change on snowpack and fire potential in the western USA. Clim Chang. 2017;141:287–99. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-017-1899-y.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  36. Holden ZA, Luce CH, Crimmins MA, Morgan P. Wildfire extent and severity correlated with annual streamflow distribution and timing in the Pacific Northwest, USA (1984-2005). Ecohydrology. 2012;5:677–84. https://doi.org/10.1002/eco.257.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  37. Williams AP, Abatzoglou JT. Recent advances and remaining uncertainties in resolving past and future climate effects on global fire activity. Curr Clim Chang Rep. 2016;2:1–14. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40641-016-0031-0.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  38. van der Werf GR, Randerson JT, Giglio L, Gobron N, Dolman AJ. Climate controls on the variability of fires in the tropics and subtropics. Global Biogeochem Cycles. 2008;22:n/a-n/a. https://doi.org/10.1029/2007GB003122.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  39. Schroeder MJ. Critical fire weather patterns in the conterminous United States. Silver Spring, MD: Environmental Science Services Administration; 1969.

    Google Scholar 

  40. Potter BE. Atmospheric interactions with wildland fire behaviour - I. Basic surface interactions, vertical profiles and synoptic structures. Int J Wildl Fire. 2012;21:779. https://doi.org/10.1071/WF11128.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  41. Johnson EA, Wowchuk DR. Wildfires in the southern Canadian Rocky Mountains and their relationship to mid-tropospheric anomalies. Can J For Res. 1993;23:1213–22. https://doi.org/10.1139/x93-153.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  42. Skinner WR, Stocks BJ, Martell DL, Bonsal B, Shabbar A. The association between circulation anomalies in the mid-troposphere and area burned by wildland fire in Canada. Theor Appl Climatol. 1999;63:89–105. https://doi.org/10.1007/s007040050095.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  43. Gedalof Z, Peterson DL, Mantua NJ. Atmospheric, climatic, and ecological controls on extreme wildfire years in the northwestern United States. Ecol Appl. 2005;15:154–74. https://doi.org/10.1890/03-5116.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  44. Crimmins MA. Synoptic climatology of extreme fire-weather conditions across the southwest United States. Int J Climatol. 2006;26:1001–16. https://doi.org/10.1002/joc.1300.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  45. Trouet V, Taylor AH, Carleton AM, Skinner CN. Interannual variations in fire weather, fire extent, and synoptic-scale circulation patterns in northern California and Oregon. Theor Appl Climatol. 2009;95:349–60. https://doi.org/10.1007/s00704-008-0012-x.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  46. Hostetler SW, Bartlein PJ, Holman JO. Atlas of climatic controls of wildfire in the Western United States. U.S. Geological Survey Scientific Investigations Report 5139. 2006; 67 p.

  47. Diaz HF, Swetnam TW. The wildfires of 1910: climatology of an extreme early twentieth-century event and comparison with more recent extremes. Bull Am Meteorol Soc. 2013;94:1361–70. https://doi.org/10.1175/BAMS-D-12-00150.1.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  48. Riley KL, Abatzoglou JT, Grenfell IC, Klene AE, Heinsch FA. The relationship of large fire occurrence with drought and fire danger indices in the western USA, 1984-2008: the role of temporal scale. Int J Wildl Fire. 2013;22:894–909. https://doi.org/10.1071/WF12149.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  49. Collins BM, Omi PN, Chapman PL. Regional relationships between climate and wildfire-burned area in the Interior West, USA. Can J For Res. 2006;36:699–709. https://doi.org/10.1139/x05-264.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  50. McKenzie D, Gedalof Z, Peterson DL, Mote P. Climatic change, wildfire, and conservation. Conserv Biol. 2004;18:890–902.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  51. Littell JS, Mckenzie D, Peterson DL, Westerling AL. Climate and wildfire area burned in western U.S. ecoprovinces, 1916-2003. Ecol Appl. 2009;19:1003–21. https://doi.org/10.1890/07-1183.1.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  52. • Keeley JE, Syphard AD. Different historical fire–climate patterns in California. Int J Wildl Fire. 2017;26:253. https://doi.org/10.1071/WF16102. This paper illustrates both the differences in climate-fire relationships across vegetation types but also the role of fire management in potentially affecting the ways climate and fire interact.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  53. Swetnam TW. Fire history and climate change in giant sequoia groves. Science. 1993;262:885–9.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  54. Swetnam TW, Betancourt JL. Fire-southern oscillation relations in the southwestern United States. Science. 1990;249:1017–20. https://doi.org/10.1126/science.249.4972.1017.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  55. Swetnam TW, Betancourt JL. Mesoscale disturbance and ecological response to decadal climatic variability in the American Southwest. J Clim. 1998;11:3128–47. https://doi.org/10.1175/1520-0442(1998)011<3128:MDAERT>2.0.CO;2.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  56. Heyerdahl EK, Brubaker LB, Agee JK. Annual and decadal climate forcing of historical fire regimes in the interior Pacific Northwest, USA. The Holocene. 2002;12:597–604. https://doi.org/10.1191/0959683602hl570rp.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  57. Hessl AE, McKenzie D, Schellhaas R. Drought and pacific decadal oscillation linked to fire occurrence in the inland pacific northwest. Ecol Appl. 2004;14:425–42. https://doi.org/10.1890/03-5019.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  58. Gavin DG, Hallett DJ, Hu FS, Lertzman KP, Prichard SJ, Brown KJ, et al. Forest fire and climate change in western North America: insights from sediment charcoal records. Front Ecol Environ. 2007;5:499–506. https://doi.org/10.1890/060161.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  59. Heyerdahl EK, McKenzie D, Daniels LD, Hessl AE, Littell JS, Mantua NJ. Climate drivers of regionally synchronous fires in the inland Northwest (16511900). Int J Wildl Fire. 2008;17:40–9. https://doi.org/10.1071/WF07024.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  60. Margolis EQ, Woodhouse CA, Swetnam TW. Drought, multi-seasonal climate, and wildfire in northern New Mexico. Clim Chang. 2017;142:433–46. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-017-1958-4.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  61. Schoennagel T, Veblen TT, Romme WH, Sibold JS, Cook ER. ENSO and PDO variability affect drought-induced fire occurrence in Rocky Mountain subalpine forests. Ecol Appl. 2000;15:2000–14.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  62. Dettinger MD, Cayan DR, Diaz HF, Meko DM. North–south precipitation patterns in Western North America on interannual-to-decadal timescales. J Clim. 1998;11:3095–111. https://doi.org/10.1175/1520-0442(1998)011<3095:NSPPIW>2.0.CO;2.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  63. McCabe GJ, Palecki MA, Betancourt JL. Pacific and Atlantic Ocean influences on multidecadal drought frequency in the United States. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2004;101:4136–41. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0306738101.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  64. Marlon JR, Bartlein PJ, Gavin DG, Long CJ, Anderson RS, Briles CE, et al. Long-term perspective on wildfires in the western USA. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2012;109:E535–43. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1112839109.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  65. Simard AJ, Haines DA, Main WA. Relations between El Nino/Southern Oscillation anomalies and wildland fire activity in the United States. Agric For Meteorol. 1985;36(2):93–104. https://doi.org/10.1016/0168-1923(85)90001-2.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  66. Kitzberger T, Brown PM, Heyerdahl EK, Swetnam TW, Veblen TT. Contingent Pacific-Atlantic Ocean influence on multicentury wildfire synchrony over western North America. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2007;104:543–8. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.0606078104.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  67. Gedalof Z. Climate and spatial patterns of wildfire in North America. In: McKenzie D, Miller C, Falk D, editors. The landscape ecology of fire. Ecological Studies (Analysis and Synthesis). Dordrecht: Springer; 2011.

    Google Scholar 

  68. Crimmins MA. Interannual to decadal changes in extreme fire weather event frequencies across the southwestern United States. Int J Climatol Int J Clim. 2011;31:1573–83. https://doi.org/10.1002/joc.2184.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  69. Mason SA, Hamlington PE, Hamlington BD, Matt Jolly W, Hoffman CM. Effects of climate oscillations on wildland fire potential in the continental United States. Geophys Res Lett. 2017;44:7002–10. https://doi.org/10.1002/2017GL074111.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  70. Schubert SD, Stewart RE, Wang H, Barlow M, Berbery EH, Cai W, et al. Global meteorological drought: a synthesis of current understanding with a focus on SST drivers of precipitation deficits. J Clim. 2016;29:3989–4019.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  71. • McAfee SA, McAfee SA. Consistency and the lack thereof in Pacific Decadal Oscillation impacts on North American winter climate. J Clim. 2014;27:7410–31. https://doi.org/10.1175/JCLI-D-14-00143.1. This paper questions the stationarity of the PDO influence on North American climatology and presents evidence that its predictive capacity is limited for impacts.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  72. Barbero R, Abatzoglou JT, Brown TJ. Seasonal reversal of the influence of El Niño-Southern Oscillation on very large wildfire occurrence in the interior northwestern United States. Geophys Res Lett. 2015;42:3538–45. https://doi.org/10.1002/2015GL063428.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  73. Jolly WM, Cochrane MA, Freeborn PH, Holden ZA, Brown TJ, Williamson GJ, et al. Climate-induced variations in global wildfire danger from 1979 to 2013. Nat Commun. 2015;6:6. https://doi.org/10.1038/ncomms8537.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  74. •• Abatzoglou JT, Williams AP. Impact of anthropogenic climate change on wildfire across western US forests. Proc Natl Acad Sci. 2016;113:11770–5. https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1607171113. This paper is the first quantitative climate change attribution study for forest fire – it assesses the relative contribution of anthropogenic climate change and climatic variability in the recent fire history.

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  75. Hostetler SW, Bartlein PJ, Alder JR. Atmospheric and surface climate associated with 1986-2013 wildfires in North America. J Geophys Res Biogeosci. 2018;123:1588–609. https://doi.org/10.1029/2017JG004195.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  76. Nicolai-Shaw N, Gudmundsson L, Hirschi M, Seneviratne SI. Long-term predictability of soil moisture dynamics at the global scale: persistence versus large-scale drivers. Geophys Res Lett. 2016;43:8554–62. https://doi.org/10.1002/2016GL069847.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  77. Seager R, Ting M. Decadal drought variability over North America: mechanisms and predictability. Curr Clim Chang Rep. 2017;3:141–9. https://doi.org/10.1007/s40641-017-0062-1.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  78. Owen G, Mcleod JD, Kolden CA, Ferguson DB, Brown TJ Wildfire management and forecasting fire potential: the roles of climate information and social networks in the Southwest United States. 2012; https://doi.org/10.1175/WCAS-D-11-00038.1,.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  79. Higuera PE, Abatzoglou JT, Littell JS, Morgan P. The changing strength and nature of fire-climate relationships in the northern Rocky Mountains, U.S.A., 1902-2008. PLoS One. 2015:10. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0127563.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  80. Holling CS, Gunderson LH. Chapter 2: Resilience and adaptive cycles. In: Gunderson LH, Holling CS, editors. Panarchy : understanding transformations in human and natural systems. Washington, D.C.: Island Press; 2002.

    Google Scholar 

  81. Fath BD, Dean CA, Katzmair H. Navigating the adaptive cycle: an approach to managing the resilience of social systems. Ecol Soc. 2015;20:art24. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-07467-200224.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  82. Littell JS, Peterson DL, Millar CI, O’Halloran KA. U.S. National Forests adapt to climate change through science–management partnerships. Clim Chang. 2012;110:269–96. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10584-011-0066-0.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  83. Holling CS. Resilience and stability of ecological systems. Annu Rev Ecol Syst. 1973;4:1–23. https://doi.org/10.1146/annurev.es.04.110173.000245.

    Article  Google Scholar 

  84. Doane DL, O’Laughlin J, Morgan P, Miller C. Barriers to wildland fire use: a preliminary problem analysis. Int J Wilderness. 2006;12(1):36–8.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

I thank three anonymous reviewers for constructive comments on earlier drafts of the manuscript.

Funding

This work was funded by the Department of Interior Alaska Climate Adaptation Science Center. Any use of trade, firm, or product names is for descriptive purposes only and does not imply endorsement by the US Government.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. US Geological Survey, Department of the Interior Alaska Climate Adaptation Science Center, 4210 University Drive, Anchorage, AK, 99508, USA

    Jeremy S. Littell

Authors
  1. Jeremy S. Littell
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Jeremy S. Littell.

Ethics declarations

Conflict of Interest

Corresponding author states there is no conflict of interest.

Additional information

This article is part of the Topical Collection on Climate Change and Drought

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Littell, J.S. Drought and Fire in the Western USA: Is Climate Attribution Enough?. Curr Clim Change Rep 4, 396–406 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40641-018-0109-y

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s40641-018-0109-y

Keywords

Search

Navigation