Recent fire history enhances semi-arid conifer forest drought resistance

Climate change is amplifying both wildfire burned area and severity, as well as incidents of drought-induced tree mortality (dieback). Direct effects from climate change amplify wildfires and episodes of drought-induced dieback have well-known impacts on forest’s ability to regulate climate, provide water, and store carbon. Less understood are how past disturbances produce interaction effects that can change subsequent disturbance occurrence and intensity, with implications for management decisions that can promote forest resistance and resilience. We constructed two parallel forest chrono-sequences by combining a geospatial database of historical fire with satellite and airborne observations of forests in the Sierra Nevada of California to assess the impact of fire history on vegetation recovery, water use (evapotranspiration), and drought-induced forest dieback. We used these data sets to assess two research questions: (1.) Does fire history amplify or reduce drought-dieback intensity? (2.) What mechanisms explain how fire-induced changes to forest structure and ET alter subsequent forest dieback intensity? We show that recent fire history decreased drought-induced forest dieback intensity, compared to unburned controls. These fire-affected forests were characterized by reduced tree cover and decreased evapotranspiration, which combined to increase drought resistance more than would be expected by either effect individually. Two decades post-fire, evapotranspiration returned to pre-fire conditions. Tree and shrub cover started to approach pre-fire conditions, except for high severity fires where decreased tree cover and increased shrub cover persisted. Field based research on fuels treatments suggests that fire history may also increase longer term forest resilience. In fire-prone conifer forests, interaction effects from recent low and moderate severity fires will increase drought resistance and perhaps longer-term forest stability.