Wildfire Risk to Aboveground Terrestrial Carbon Stocks in the Western United States

Abstract:

Wildfire is an important part of the terrestrial carbon cycle, moving carbon stored in wood, leaves, litter, and duff into the black carbon and emissions pools. Here, we utilize a national raster of burn probabilities from wildland fire, a tree list for the western United States, and a national map of fuel loading models to calculate the risk to terrestrial carbon from wildland fires in the western United States. Annual burn probabilities are estimated by the Large Fire Simulator (FSim), based on current static landscape conditions and at least 10,000 years of statistically plausible weather sequences. For fires of varying intensity, forest carbon retained onsite and carbon emissions are estimated by the Fire and Fuels Extension of the Forest Vegetation Simulator. In grasslands and shrublands, carbon retained and emitted by wildfire is estimated based on current fuel loading and estimated consumption. We summarize expected carbon stocks and expected annual carbon loss at a variety of scales, aggregating values from the 270m pixel to National Forest, ecoregion, state, and regional scales. Our results indicate that following even a high intensity wildland fire in forested areas, the majority of aboveground carbon is retained onsite in the form of tree trunks. Because of the low annual probability of burning, emissions are small relative to carbon stocks. Additional work will be needed to integrate the complex temporal dimension of the carbon cycle, with areas burned in recent years being at first a carbon source and then a carbon sink after less than a decade in most areas.