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Amidst environmental challenges and an increased need for infrastructure improvements, sustainable development becomes imperative to tackle the consequences of a growing human population, escalating resource demands, and the impact of human activities on the …

Almost a year has passed since the Mosquito Fire roared through the American River Canyon just outside the small northern California community of Foresthill. Steep hillsides covered in oak and pine trees, shrubs and grasses went up in flames. The fire started on September 6, 2022, and burned for 46 days, destroying homes and small businesses and blackening more than 76,000 acres of National Forest and privately-owned lands. But a recent visit to the burn area provided some hope to wildlife biologists. A small population of California red-legged frogs, a threatened species, survived the fire.

Fire in the landscape is a natural disturbance factor to which native species have evolved, particularly in the western United States (Pilliod et al. 2003; Jager et al. 2021). Large-scale wildfires can temporarily reduce thatch, directly kill wildlife, change soil chemistry, facilitate immigration and emigration, open otherwise closed habitats, redistribute vegetation communities, reduce, or eliminate some habitat types, and have other positive or negative impacts (Romme 1982; Pease et al. 1989; Pilliod et al. 2003; Smucker et al. 2005; Rochester et al. 2010).