Press Release
9.3.2025

New study shows proactive forest management reduces high severity wildfire by 88% and stabilizes carbon during extreme droughts

Truckee, CA (3 September 2025) –  New research finds that treated forests are 88% less susceptible to high severity wildfire than their unmanaged counterparts, and can recover carbon stocks in only 7 years. The findings, carried out by researchers at Vibrant Planet, Northern Arizona University, American Forest Foundation, and Blue Forest, make the case for more proactive forest management across the US, and specifically, the increasingly wildfire-prone West. Read the publication in Frontiers in Forests and Global Change. 

Many forests in the West are adapted to live and thrive with frequent, low-severity fire.  Yet the confluence of historical fire suppression, intensifying wildfire, and drought, are now rewriting the rules—and the risk—for forests and the communities that live in and around them. This work shows: without human stewardship designed to restore healthy fire regimes and forest structure, many of these fire-adapted forests will go up in flames and may never regenerate, instead transitioning to non-forested ecosystems.

“After 130 years of fire suppression, most of the western US is contending with an enormous wildfire debt ” said Katharyn Duffy, a study co-author and Senior Scientist at Vibrant Planet. “It’s not a question of if these forests will burn, but when, and where. Every year, we’re rolling the wildfire dice. One year, fires land in Arizona and New Mexico; the next, Oregon and Washington. But make no mistake—somewhere in the West, the dice always fall.”

As climate-driven megafires and prolonged droughts reshape California’s forests, this new peer-reviewed study offers hope—and hard evidence—that proactive forest treatments can tip the scales back toward resilience. The study analyzed over 200 fuel reduction projects across the Central Sierra in California and found that treated forests stored carbon more durably, matching or exceeding untreated areas by year seven—even after the extreme 2020–21 drought and megafires.

The study, which analyzed 216 thinning treatments implemented in California’s Central Sierra in 2016 and monitoring wildfires that occurred through 2023, found that proactive forest management reduced average wildfire severity by 32% and cut the occurrence of high-severity fire by 88%. Treated areas not only burned less severely but also showed greater stability of live carbon, maintaining or exceeding baseline carbon levels by year seven despite the extreme drought and megafires of 2020–21. Treatments that were larger than six hectares or that received follow-up maintenance, such as prescribed burning or additional fuel removal, delivered the strongest fire-risk reduction and carbon-stabilization benefits.

The researchers focused on California's fire-prone Sierra Nevada region (including portions of the recent Dixie, Caldor, and North Complex megafires) to assess how forest treatments affect wildfire resilience. They compared similar forests—some thinned in 2016, others untouched—creating a natural experiment to track outcomes over five years of drought and wildfires. 

The need for a natural experiment approach became apparent as researchers experienced the challenges of capturing recent wildfire impacts. “We started by trying to simulate current wildfire behavior, but we found that models failed to predict the extent and severity of fire conditions in 2020 and 2021,” said Ethan Yackulic, the lead author of the study. “For example, the nine largest fires in California’s history have all occurred in the past decade. This kind of natural experiment gives us verifiable insights into how forests are truly faring because no model is going to predict what we’re witnessing right now.”

Yackulic explains, “even though the treatments we monitored had a high initial 'carbon cost' in the removal of live trees, a dramatic signal of forest resilience emerged in subsequent years. While other studies have shown that management interventions are effective at reducing wildfire hazard risk on a treatment-by-treatment basis, it was encouraging to witness landscape scale treatment effectiveness and the potential for more durable carbon storage across the Central Sierra Nevada.” 

Sophie Gilbert, a study co-author and Director of Science Strategy at Vibrant Planet, said these results help answer one of the central questions facing land managers today: “How much treatment would we have to do, how intensely, and where, to reduce a forest’s risk to severe fire, and drought?” Gilbert said part of that answer is not just calibrating intensity of fuel treatments but committing to a sustainable relationship with the land. 

These results could support an additional source of funding for forest restoration and management efforts, recent research from Blue Forest suggests, while keeping forests and their many ecosystem benefits intact. “Treating forests is about re-establishing humans’ reciprocal relationship with the land. It requires sustained attention and effort. And in return, forests will reward us with abundant ecosystem services. One of these is keeping carbon out of the atmosphere, but so many others come along for the ride: water quality and quantity, biodiversity, and more.” said Gilbert.

### 

Funding Sources

Funding information: Award number: 24-CA-11132544-064. This work was partially funded by the American Forest Foundation, as a recipient of an award from the USDA Forest Service #24-CA-11132544-064 Removing Barriers to Scaling the Family Forest Carbon Program and Market Opportunities for Family Forest Landowners.

About Vibrant Planet

We believe we can achieve vibrant landscapes, clean water, abundant biodiversity, and safer communities by creating a common operating picture that helps teams and leaders build enduring resilience.

As a public benefit corporation (PBC) fostering positive social and environmental impact is core to our mission. Part of our public benefit is making novel data products available for scientific and educational pursuits through our nonprofit, VP Data Commons.

More Press Releases

Press Release
6.27.25
New Research Shows How Wildfire Mitigation Efforts Could Save Communities Billions in Damages
New research and modeling published by Vibrant Planet Data Commons (VPDC) and Megafire Action shows how wildfire risk mitigation projects could deliver billions in avoided losses for seven wildfire-susceptible communities across the US.
Press Release
3.19.25
Vibrant Planet’s canopy height model found to lead the industry in accuracy
Trained on 12 million acres, the VibrantVS model excels in accuracy, temporal currency, and cost
Press Release
10.31.24
Wildfire Hazard Technology Guides Placer County's $1.6B Wildfire Resilience Challenge
Placer County and Vibrant Planet's partnership continues, strengthening local wildfire resilience plans.

More Press Releases

Press Release
6.27.25
New Research Shows How Wildfire Mitigation Efforts Could Save Communities Billions in Damages
New research and modeling published by Vibrant Planet Data Commons (VPDC) and Megafire Action shows how wildfire risk mitigation projects could deliver billions in avoided losses for seven wildfire-susceptible communities across the US.
Press Release
3.19.25
Vibrant Planet’s canopy height model found to lead the industry in accuracy
Trained on 12 million acres, the VibrantVS model excels in accuracy, temporal currency, and cost
Press Release
10.31.24
Wildfire Hazard Technology Guides Placer County's $1.6B Wildfire Resilience Challenge
Placer County and Vibrant Planet's partnership continues, strengthening local wildfire resilience plans.
Press Release
7.16.24
Former Stripe Executive Joins Vibrant Planet, Supporting Expansion into New Verticals
Dan Myers, former Head of Business Operations at Stripe, joins Vibrant Planet to oversee operations as the company launches new community wildfire resilience vertical in the face of increasing wildfire and climate risk.
Press Release
7.20.23
Vibrant Planet + Pyrologix Join Forces
Vibrant Planet has merged with Pyrologix, the wildfire analysis research firm, to provide decision-support for optimizing resource deployment to land managers working at all scales.
Press Release
9.22.22
As Mosquito Fire Burns, Forest Health Partners Deploy New Technology to Help Reduce Wildfire Threats Across 1.5M acres in the Tahoe Region
Land Tender™ uses high resolution imaging and artificial intelligence to modernize planning for forest health treatments
Press Release
6.23.22
Netflix, Meta, and Lyft Alumni Launch Vibrant Planet with $17M in Seed Funding to Prevent Catastrophic Wildfire
Vibrant Planet announces a $17M seed round led by Ecosystem Integrity Fund and The Jeremy & Hannelore Grantham Environmental Trust.
Press Release
1.20.22
Renowned Ecologist Hugh Safford Named Chief Scientist at Vibrant Planet
Vibrant Planet to deploy best available science to protect forests from catastrophic wildfires, fight climate crisis.
Press Release
9.22.21
Vibrant Planet Launches First-of-Its-Kind Land Management Tool To Help Prevent Catastrophic Wildfires in Lake Tahoe Basin and Beyond
The Vibrant Planet platform delivers fire prevention and forest health projects in months, not years.

    More News

    In the News
    4.9.24
    Vibrant Planet CEO Allison Wolff recognized on Inc. Magazine’s 2024 Female Founders list
    Inc. Magazine
    Allison Wolff recognized for Vibrant Planet's work to track and prevent wildfires and for becoming a government-approved environmental vendor.
    In the News
    3.26.24
    Vibrant Planet uses AI for land mapping and improving climate resiliency
    TechCrunch
    Vibrant Planet founder and CEO Allison Wolff joins TechCrunch’s Found podcast about using technology to improve land management.
    In the News
    3.19.24
    Placer County adopts digital fire prevention program
    Fox 40
    A new effort is underway to help Placer County make land use decisions while keeping wildfire safety in mind.

    More News

    In the News
    4.9.24
    Vibrant Planet CEO Allison Wolff recognized on Inc. Magazine’s 2024 Female Founders list
    Allison Wolff recognized for Vibrant Planet's work to track and prevent wildfires and for becoming a government-approved environmental vendor.
    In the News
    3.26.24
    Vibrant Planet uses AI for land mapping and improving climate resiliency
    Vibrant Planet founder and CEO Allison Wolff joins TechCrunch’s Found podcast about using technology to improve land management.
    In the News
    3.19.24
    Placer County adopts digital fire prevention program
    A new effort is underway to help Placer County make land use decisions while keeping wildfire safety in mind.
    In the News
    12.5.23
    COP28 coverage: Interview with Vibrant Planet’s CEO Allison Wolff
    Allison Wolff speaks to BBC News about the Vibrant Planet platform during COP28.
    In the News
    12.1.23
    Megafire and New AI/ML Models For Change
    Vibrant Planet uses ML & AI models to map forests to help mitigate risk from megafires.
    In the News
    10.13.23
    Why The United States’ Relationship With Wildfire Is Changing
    The recent report by the Wildland Fire Mitigation and Management Commission recommends a shift from reactive to proactive actions.
    In the News
    10.11.23
    Vibrant Planet is Using Data to Fight Wildfires and Plans Deployments to 15 Million Acres
    Vibrant Planet's platform is deployed on about 5 million acres, including the Lake Tahoe Basin and surrounding watersheds in California, with plans to cover 15 million acres by the end of the year.
    In the News
    10.5.23
    The pitch deck that landed climate startup Vibrant Planet $15 million
    Vibrant Planet raises a $15M Series A funding round from backers like Microsoft.
    In the News
    9.2.23
    How Better Tech Could Save Lives in a World of Bigger, Faster, More Devastating Fires
    We can already detect fires from space, soon after they start. Here’s why we don’t yet have a nationwide system for alerting us when they do — but could someday.