The reintroduction of fire to long-unburned pine ecosystems is a silvicultural tool to restore their ecological and economic value. However, if prescribed fire is used after long periods of fire exclusion, high amounts of duff consumed during fire can result in tree stress and mortality. Prescribed burning with a focus on managing duff has therefore been recommended for mitigating negative impacts on overstory trees when fire...

See Commentary on: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/gcb.14727 ; See also Letter to the Editor on: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/gcb.15399

Trends in average annual or seasonal precipitation are insufficient for detecting changes in the climatic fire season, especially in regions where the fire season is defined by wet–dry seasonal cycles and lightning activity. Using an extensive dataset (1897–2017) in the Coastal Plain of the southeastern United States, we examined changes in annual dry season length, total precipitation, and (since 1945) the seasonal distributi...