Controlled fires, as a method, refer to the deliberate ignition and management of fire under predefined environmental, spatial, and temporal conditions to achieve specific experimental, ecological, or land-management objectives. In research and applied settings, they are implemented using standardized ignition patterns, fuel preparation, and meteorological criteria to manipulate fire intensity, spread rate, and residence time while maintaining safety and reproducibility. Controlled fires enable systematic study of fire behavior, combustion processes, vegetation and soil responses, emissions, and post-fire ecological dynamics, and they often require detailed planning, monitoring instrumentation, and adherence to regulatory and risk-mitigation protocols.
Indonesia experiences massive forest fires as the dry season approaches. They are a major environmental challenge because they damage forests and other land, endanger lives, and disrupt local economies. Using sharp, high-resolution ...
Prescribed burning, when combined with tree retention, can effectively support natural regeneration in managed boreal forests, new research shows. The study demonstrates that post-fire seedling establishment remains strong ...
Ecology
Apr 15, 2026
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20
As winter comes to a close, many people look forward to warmer temperatures and spring blooms, but for land managers working to preserve or restore oak-dominated forests, it is prescribed burn season. Fire brings more light ...
Ecology
Apr 2, 2026
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12
In 2019 and again in 2021, Penn State researchers in the Department of Geography walked a series of 1,000 square foot plots in California's Lassen Volcanic National Park. The goal was to see how the forest that's hands-off ...
Ecology
Mar 4, 2026
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14
There is a long history of the mechanical thinning of forests in standard forestry operations. Thinning typically involves removing some 30–50% of the standing volume of trees with commercially valued logs removed via tracked ...
Ecology
Feb 25, 2026
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Goats are increasingly being used in efforts to manage invasive common buckthorn in Midwestern woodlands. New research demonstrates when and how they are best used.
Ecology
Feb 9, 2026
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15
Humans' exposure to high temperature burn injuries may have played an important role in our evolutionary development, shaping how our bodies heal, fight infection, and sometimes fail under extreme injury, according to new ...
Evolution
Feb 4, 2026
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1884
For thousands of years, one tree species defined the cultural and ecological identity of what is now the American South: the longleaf pine. The forest once stretched across 92 million acres from Virginia to Texas, but about ...
Ecology
Jan 27, 2026
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In lush South Florida, trees and bushes grow all year round. And that means yard waste and dead trees never stop piling up. But leaving them in a landfill is a climate-warming issue. Two South Florida governments think they ...
Earth Sciences
Jan 26, 2026
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25
Every year during December and January, in the Indian Himalayan state of Uttarakhand, rural communities carry out traditional burning on steep hill slopes to regenerate grass. These carefully timed burns, which take place ...
Earth Sciences
Dec 15, 2025
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