Five Core Tenets of Pyrogeography

As global climate, land use, and fire management strategies continue to change, so do patterns of wildfire. These changing patterns have led to challenges associated with the relationships between people, fire, and ecosystems. Coinciding with these challenges has been the emergence of a transdisciplinary field, pyrogeography. Here, we offer a review of pyrogeography as a field, supported by five foundational (but nonexhaustive) core tenets: that fires create pattern, that fire patterns are inextricably linked to socioecological systems, that they are dynamic, that a human-derived pyrome is homogenizing many of the world’s pyromes, and that a diversity of human-influenced fire regimes and pyromes must be reinstated to maintain socioecological resilience. We identify a few key priorities for pyrogeography. Elements of a common pyrogeography framework must coalesce, and complex social dimensions need to continue to be integrated into the way we study fire.