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

Little, Kerryn, Vitali, Rayanne, Belcher, Claire M., Kettridge, Nicholas, Pellegrini, Adam F. A., Ford, Adriana E. S., Smith, Alistair M. S., Elliott, Andy, Voulgarakis, Apostolos, Stoof, Cathelijne R., Kolden, Crystal A., Schwilk, Dylan W., Kennedy, Eric B., Newman Thacker, Fiona E., Millin-Chalabi, Gail R., Clay, Gareth D., Morison, James I., McCarty, Jessica L., Ivison, Katy, Tansey, Kevin, Simpson, Kimberley J., Jones, Matthew W., Mack, Michelle C., Fulé, Peter Z., Gazzard, Rob, Harrison, Sandy P., New, Stacey, Page, Susan E., Hall, Tilly E., Brown, Tim, Jolly, W. Matt and Doerr, Stefan (2025) Priority research directions for wildfire science: Views from a historically fire-prone and an emerging fire-prone country. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 380 (1924). ISSN 0962-8436

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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’.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	Data accessibility statement: This article has no additional data. Funding information: K.L., R.V., C.B., N.K., G.M.-C., G.C. and S.D. acknowledge funding from NERC grants UKFDRS (NE/T003553/1) and IDEAL UK FIRE (NE/X005143/1). K.L. and R.V. were supported by UKRI-NERC in time allocation to put together this work. R.V. was also supported by the GreenFeedBack project (greenhouse gas fluxes and Earth system feedbacks) funded by the European Union’s HORIZON Research and Innovation programme under grant agreement number 101056921.
Faculty \ School:	University of East Anglia Research Groups/Centres > Theme - ClimateUEA Faculty of Science > School of Environmental Sciences
UEA Research Groups:	Faculty of Science > Research Groups > Climatic Research Unit University of East Anglia Schools > Faculty of Science > Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research Faculty of Science > Research Centres > Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research
Related URLs:	https://royalsocietypublishing.org/doi/1...
Depositing User:	LivePure Connector
Date Deposited:	23 Apr 2025 14:30
Last Modified:	23 Apr 2025 14:30
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/99057
DOI:	10.1098/rstb.2024.0001

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