Fuels change quickly after California drought and bark beetle outbreaks with implications for potential fire behavior and emissions

Abstract

Abstract Background An extreme drought from 2012–2016 and concurrent bark beetle outbreaks in California, USA resulted in widespread tree mortality. We followed changes in tree mortality, stand structure, and surface and canopy fuels over four years after the peak of mortality in Sierra mixed conifer and pinyon pine (Pinus monophylla) forests to examine patterns of mortality, needle retention after death, and snag fall across tree species. We then investigated how the tree mortality event affected surface and canopy fuel loading and potential impacts on fire hazard and emissions. Results Drought and beetle-related tree mortality shifted mortality patterns to be more evenly distributed across size classes and concentrated in pines. Substantial changes to surface fuel loading, stand density, canopy fuel loads, and potential wildfire emissions occurred within four years following peak levels of tree mortality, with the largest changes related to increases in coarse woody debris. Nearly complete needle fall occurred within four years of mortality for all species except red fir (Abies magnifica). Pine species and incense cedar (Calocedrus decurrens) snags fell more quickly than fir species. Potential fire behavior modelling suggested that crowning and torching hazard decreased as trees dropped dead needles and fell, but as canopy fuels were transferred to surface fuels, potential for smoldering combustion increased, causing greater emissions. Conclusions Our study increases understanding of how extreme tree mortality events caused by concurrent disturbances alter canopy and surface fuel loading and have the potential to affect fire behavior and emissions in two compositionally different seasonally dry forest types. After a major tree mortality event, high canopy fuel flammability may only last a few years, but surface fuels can increase considerably over the same time period in these forest types. The accumulation of coarse woody surface fuels resulting from multi-year drought and concurrent bark beetle outbreaks combined with the increasing frequency of drought in the western U.S. have the potential to lead to heavy and dry fuel loads that under certain weather conditions may result in more extreme fire behavior and severe effects, particularly in forest types where decades of successful fire suppression has caused forest densification.