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Aims and scope

Fire Ecology is the international scientific journal of the Association for Fire Ecology. It publishes peer-reviewed, impactful articles on all ecological and management aspects relating to wildland fire. While the topics considered for publication are broad, manuscripts submitted to Fire Ecology must have a direct link to wildland fire and should include discussion of the ecological, management, or policy implications. Wildfire and prescribed fire research are welcome. Only high-quality manuscripts with wide international appeal will be considered. We welcome submissions on topics that include a broad range of research on the ecological relationships of fire to its environment, including, but not limited to:

  • Fire ecology (physical and biological fire effects, fire regimes, etc.)
  • Fire management
  • Fire science and modeling
  • Wildland fuel
  • Inter- or cross-disciplinary fire-related topics
  • Wildland fire law and policy
  • Wildfire planning and risk management
  • Social aspects (geography, sociology, anthropology, etc.) of wildland fire
  • Wildland fire technology transfer products

Fire Ecology Chats
A Podcast Series by the Association for Fire Ecology

2023
Stabilizing influences on future wildfire regimes: Studies in forest burning and reburning
Edited by: Paul F. Hessburg, Lori D. Daniels, Nicholas Povak, Jocelyne Laflamme
First article published on: 30 June 2023

Remote Sensing for Wildfire Management Potential and Impacts
Edited by: Padam Jee Omar, Ganesh Ji Omar, Pankaj Kumar Gupta
First article published on: 17 February 2023 

Fire Ecology Across Boundaries
Edited by: Anne Ganteaume, Núria Prat-Guitart, Guillermo Defossé
First article published on: 26 January 2023

Modeling Wildfire Under Climate Change
Edited by: Alex W. Dye, John B. Kim, Peng Gao, Larissa Yocom, Karin L. Riley
First article published on: 3 April 2023

2022
Wildland Fire Management Strategy and Effectiveness
Edited by: Erin J. Belval, Karen C. Short, Matthew P. Thompson, Jesse Young
First article published on: 4 August 2022

Life with Fire: Prescriptions for Resilience
Edited by: Morgan Varner, Sharon M. Hood, Núria Prat-Guitart, Kevin M. Robertson, Sarah M. McCaffrey
First article published: 10 July 2022

2021
Wildfire and Prescribed Fire Effects on Wildlife
Edited by: Gavin Jones, Brice Hanberry, Katie H. Greenberg, Angela M. White
First article published: 16 June 2021
Closed for submissons

Click here to view the full list of journal collections.

In Review: Fire Ecology’s Preprint Service

Fire Ecology, in partnership with Research Square, now offers In Review: a journal-integrated preprint service.

Authors choosing this free optional service will be able to:

  • Share their work with fellow researchers to read, comment on, and cite even before publication
  • Showcase their work to funders and others with a citable DOI while it is still under review
  • Track their manuscript—including seeing when reviewers are invited, and when reports are received

See what the Fire Ecology In Review platform looks like!

Students & Early Career Researchers

The completion of a PhD thesis often provides an excellent opportunity to publish your results, review a key topic, provide new perspectives, or develop new methodology. Fire Ecology encourages all students, and especially its SAFE members and early career researchers (ECRs), to publish one of these article types: Original research, Review, Forum, Technical note or Field note.

Therefore, as a student or ECR (defined as being within one year of award of your PhD degree) listed as the first author of one of the above article types accepted, you will receive a voucher for free access to any Springer publication in eBook form (up to a maximum value of 250 Euros/US dollars, and maximum one per year) in perpetuity.

Please read more about these article types and the submission guidelines: Original research, Review, Forum, Technical note or Field note.

2023 Outstanding Associate Editor

New Content Item

Becky Kerns is a Research Ecologist at the USFS Pacific Northwest Research Station (PNW: Fire, Fuels, and Smoke) located in Corvallis Oregon. She has held several leadership roles for USFS, including National Program Lead for Invasive Species, Assistant Director for Research at PNW, and PNW Research Team Leader. She is also Affiliate Faculty at Oregon State University in the College of Forestry. Her research focuses on understanding how fire and other disturbances such as invasive plants and climate change interact and alter forest vegetation and resilience across space and time. Kerns is committed to expanding diversity in the fire sciences and creating a culture where everyone feels welcome, including Barbie.
 

Editor’s Note: Becky has been a mainstay for the journal, almost since its inception. Her reviews are always thoughtful, constructive, and of the highest quality. She has never turned down an assignment, even when her work schedule was total chaos. Her unceasing quest to get comprehensive reviews in a timely fashion has made her one of our most valuable Associate Editors.  Thank you, Becky, for all that you do for the journal Fire Ecology.
 

Impact and Community: Reasons to Publish with Us

Join the Fire Ecology community as we celebrate success, growth, and commitment to improving the knowledge of fire ecology and uses of fire in resilient landscape management.

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Indigenous Stewardship: Addressing the fire crisis in the western USA

Picture caption: Longtube iris (Iris tenuissima), a culturally significant species and other herbs and forbs responding to a culturally-informed prescribed fire at the Big Chico Creek Ecological Reserve.

Edited by Scott Stephens, Sharon Hood, Eric E. Knapp, Jeffrey M. Kane, Thomas Swetnam, James A. Lutz, Andrea Thode

As the wildfire crisis grows, the western United States is seeing increased damage from wildfire, declines in biodiversity, increased carbon emissions, loss of life and human health impacts, and significant economic costs, all at a pace both unprecedented and unanticipated. Thoughtful stewardship of frequent fire adapted landscapes is essential to alleviating these impacts. Yet federal land management and environmental policies are ill-adapted to meeting this urgent need. In this special collection, western scientists and Indigenous practitioners come together to explore ways to prioritize forest resilience on private, tribal, and public lands for the long-term. This unique partnership highlights the broad support for finally addressing the roots of the wildfire crisis.

Opening oak forests to woodlands and new ideas

Edited by Lauren Pile-Knapp, Michael Stambaugh, Morgan Varner

This is a special collection of papers focused on eastern U.S. oak ecosystems. Many of these ecosystems have been influenced by fire for millennia and occurred across gradients from savannas to woodlands to forests. The historical ecology and management of open oak ecosystems continues to be a major line of inquiry. These collected papers represent diverse contributions relating fire to flora, fauna, water, humans, and more. The multiple submission types are the products of the diverse stakeholders and presentations from the 7th Fire in Eastern Oak Forests Conference held in Tyler, Texas, USA on May 16-18, 2023.

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Annual Journal Metrics

  • 2022 Citation Impact
    5.1 - 2-year Impact Factor
    4.5 - 5-year Impact Factor
    1.300 - SNIP (Source Normalized Impact per Paper)
    1.224 - SJR (SCImago Journal Rank)

    2023 Speed
    14 days submission to first editorial decision for all manuscripts (Median)
    156 days submission to accept (Median)

    2023 Usage 
    514,573 downloads
    687 Altmetric mentions