Wildland Fire Science Strategy
New USGS Strategy Harnesses State-of-the-Art Science to Tackle Wildfires Before, During and After the Flames
New USGS Strategy Harnesses State-of-the-Art Science to Tackle Wildfires Before, During and After the Flames
USGS Wildland Fire Science
Supporting the Nation's Wildland Fire Management Challenges
Supporting the Nation's Wildland Fire Management Challenges
USGS Emergency Assessment of Post-Fire Debris-Flow Hazards
How Wildfires Threaten U.S. Water Supplies
The USGS is working to measure and predict post-fire water quality and quantity.
The USGS is working to measure and predict post-fire water quality and quantity.
Wildland Fire Science
USGS Fire Science is fundamental to understanding the causes, consequences, and benefits of wildfire and helps prevent and manage larger, catastrophic events. USGS scientists possess diverse technical capabilities that are used to address a variety of problems posed by wildland fires. Outcomes of USGS science can be used by fire and land managers to respond to fire-related issues when they arise.
Diverse Fire Science Topics
Diverse Fire Science Topics
Learn more about the different ways that USGS science is used for wildland fire management.
Browse USGS Fire Science Publications
Browse USGS Fire Science Publications
Get more information about recent scientific publications produced by USGS that deal with wildland fire science.
Current Wildfire Hazards in the U.S.
Current Wildfire Hazards in the U.S.
Use the Intterra National Fire Situation map tool to view current wildfires and related information.
News
Ecological benefits and risks of fuel breaks vary across the sagebrush biome
Ecological benefits and risks of fuel breaks vary across the sagebrush biome
USGS Seeks Landslide Risk Reduction Proposals (FY25)
USGS Seeks Landslide Risk Reduction Proposals (FY25)
Publications
Redistribution of debris-flow sediment following severe wildfire and floods in the Jemez Mountains, New Mexico, USA
Severe fire on steep slopes increases stormwater runoff and the occurrence of runoff-initiated debris flows. Predicting locations of debris flows and their downstream effects on trunk streams requires watershed-scale high-resolution topographic data. Intense precipitation in July and September 2013 following the June 2011 Las Conchas Fire in the Jemez Mountains, New Mexico, led to...
Effects of drought and cloud-water interception on groundwater recharge and wildfire hazard for recent and future climate conditions, Kauaʻi, Oʻahu, Molokaʻi, Maui, and the Island of Hawaiʻi
The Water-budget Accounting for Tropical Regions Model (WATRMod) code was used for Kauaʻi, Oʻahu, Molokaʻi, Maui, and the Island of Hawaiʻi to estimate the spatial distribution of groundwater recharge, soil moisture, evapotranspiration, and climatic water deficit for a set of water-budget scenarios. The scenarios included historical and future drought conditions, and a land-cover...
Propensity score matching mitigates risk of faulty inferences in observational studies of effectiveness of restoration trials
Determining effectiveness of restoration treatments is an important requirement of adaptive management, but it can be non-trivial where only portions of large and heterogeneous landscapes of concern can be treated and sampled. Bias and non-randomness in the spatial deployment of treatment and thus sampling is nearly unavoidable in the data available for large-scale management trials, and...
Science
USGS Technical Transfer for Department of Defense Installations in the Sagebrush Biome
The USGS has initiated a new collaboration effort with Department of Defense (DoD) in the sagebrush biome. The goal of this effort is to establish a network with DoD resource managers to define pervasive natural resource issues facing DoD installations and to identify existing innovative USGS science and tools that support DoD resource managers. Through this effort, the USGS will provide subject...
Economic assessment of addressing annual invasive grasses across the sagebrush biome
This interdisciplinary project combines expert judgment on treatment costs with spatially explicit ecological modeling to estimate the financial resources needed to address the threat of invasive annual grass across the entire sagebrush biome. Results of the assessment will provide economic insights that can inform cost-effective resource allocation to efficiently achieve sagebrush conservation...
Southwest Fire Innovation Landscape Network: Advanced tools for fuel monitoring and assessment of wildfire risk
The USGS Southwest Biological Science Center is coordinating the Southwest Fire Innovation Landscape Network to prepare fire and natural resource managers for rapidly changing fire landscapes by conducting research and building science-management partnerships. The network develops advanced tools and technologies to assess fuel loads and the effectiveness of fuel treatments, understand wildfire...