High wildfire severity risk seen in young plantation forests

Douglas Complex fire

“We leveraged a fire severity metric that integrates fire intensity and tree susceptibility. We demonstrated how industrial forest management increases these aspects of fire risk,” said Harold Zald, lead author and a former post-doctoral scientist at Oregon State. Zald, who is now an assistant professor at Humboldt State University in Arcata, California, worked with Christopher Dunn, who is currently a post-doc at OSU.