A group of prominent researchers just analyzed data from a large number of burned field sites in Alaska, collected from 2021-2023.  The Bonanza Creek Long-Term Ecological Research program at UAF has been funded by the National Science Foundation since 1987 and they have established an impressive network of fire effects plots across interior Alaska.  For this analysis on the fate of stored carbon they examined 555 recently (within 7 years) burned plots contained in 31 separate fires across diverse boreal forests, with pre-burn stand ages ranging from 11-254 years.  Including the most recent burn, 26 of the sites burned 3 times according to fire records and ecological data.

The analysis indicated that increasing fire frequency and reburning will significantly reduce C storage capacity through progressive consumption of more biomass (mainly duff) with subsequent fire events, as well as shift forested toward non-forested landscapes.  Part of the C loss results from the second fire consuming the fallen burned trees from the previous fire.  Under the unique conditions that prevail in the boreal landscape, these logs are typically overgrown and buried by moss in a couple decades. There, the cold, acidic environment slows decay so that this wood can be preserved for centuries, but when fire returns to the site quickly the woody debris is consumed before it can be buried in the “bank”.

In short, a recovery period of < 70 years between fire events is not sufficient to reaccumulate C stores in the forest floor between fires and makes it likely that legacy C will be lost with each subsequent fire. 

Read the article: Walker, XJ, et al.  2025. Increasing wildfire frequency decreases carbon storage and leads to regeneration failure in Alaskan boreal forests. Fire Ecology 21:57.