Fire Impacts on the Environmental and Ecological Factors of the Amazon Rainforest

The structure of the Amazon Rainforest is changing because of human impacts, particularly related to burning to clear land for agricultural practices. However, forest fires can be unpredictable and can spread to the surrounding areas, after which the forest will take an undetermined amount of time to return to its pre-fire state. Fires vary in their duration and frequency in sections of the forest based on the microclimate factors such as water availability, temperature, vegetation types, etc. These changes in the fire frequency and duration impact the recovery for land not experiencing land cover conversion. To assess the resilience to fire events, we utilize a 20-year record of satellite data to identify burned areas for forested pixels that do not change land cover. By comparing these areas with nearby, non-burned control pixels, we quantify two measures of forest resilience to burning: the impact of the burn itself and the time necessary to return to pre-burn conditions. We assess the recovery over a five year post-burn period and quantify the impacts relative to a five year pre-burn baseline condition. This allows for a more thorough examination of the impacts on vegetation and microclimatic factors while also controlling for drought and other meteorological conditions. This study increases our understanding of the nature of forest resilience to burning events in the Amazon region.