Scandinavian Journal of Forest Research

Fire Ecology and Management in Northern Forests

The Scandinavian Journal of Forest Research invites submissions to an article collection on fire ecology and management in northern forests, with emphasis on understanding fire regimes, ecosystem responses, and management strategies across boreal and temperate forest landscapes of Northern Europe and comparable regions.

Fire has been a fundamental ecological process shaping Scandinavian and northern European forests for millennia. Historical fire regimes influenced forest structure, composition, species diversity, and nutrient cycling across the boreal zone. However, effective fire suppression over the past century has dramatically altered these dynamics, leading to changes in stand structure, fuel accumulation, and biodiversity patterns. At the same time, climate change is increasing fire risk in regions with limited recent fire history, raising urgent questions about forest resilience, management adaptation, and the role of fire in future forest landscapes.

Understanding past fire regimes through dendrochronology, charcoal records, and historical ecology provides critical context for interpreting current forest conditions and projecting future trajectories. Contemporary research on fire behaviour, post fire regeneration, carbon dynamics, and biodiversity responses informs evidence based policy and practice. As northern forests face combined pressures from climate change, intensified management, and shifting disturbance regimes, integrating fire ecology into forest management and conservation planning has become increasingly important.

This subject paper collection will gather empirical, experimental, modelling, and synthesis studies that advance understanding of fire ecology and management in northern forest systems and support climate adaptive forestry and conservation strategies.

Topics of Interest

· Historical fire regimes: dendrochronological reconstructions, charcoal analysis, fire history, and long term fire frequency and severity patterns in Scandinavian and northern European forests.

· Fire behaviour and risk: fuel dynamics, fire weather relationships, fire spread modelling, and climate driven changes in fire probability and intensity.

· Post fire ecosystem responses: regeneration dynamics, succession pathways, soil and nutrient responses, carbon storage and emissions, and recovery trajectories.

· Biodiversity and fire: responses of plants, insects, birds, fungi, and other taxa to fire disturbance; fire dependent and fire adapted species; implications for conservation of red listed taxa.

· Fire and forest management: prescribed burning, fuel management, integration of fire into silvicultural systems, and restoration of fire adapted forests.

· Climate change and future fire regimes: projections of fire activity under climate scenarios, landscape scale risk assessment, and implications for forest planning and policy.

· Cross regional comparisons: comparative studies linking Scandinavian systems with boreal forests in North America, Russia, or other fire prone regions.

· Socio ecological dimensions: human fire use history, traditional burning practices, public perception of fire, and policy frameworks for fire management in Northern Europe.

· Methods and data resources: novel approaches in fire scar analysis, remote sensing of burned areas, fire modelling tools, and open datasets supporting fire ecology research.