Study finds treated forests can recover lost carbon stocks in as few as 7 years
Proactive forest management can dramatically reduce wildfire risk and stabilize carbon during extreme droughts, according to a new peer-reviewed study published in Frontiers in Forests and Global Change.
Researchers from Vibrant Planet, Northern Arizona University, the American Forest Foundation, and Blue Forest found that treated forests are 88% less likely to experience high-severity wildfire compared to unmanaged areas.
The study also showed that treated forests can recover lost carbon stocks in as little as seven years, EurekAlert reported.
The research comes as Western US forests face mounting pressure from decades of fire suppression, worsening drought, and climate-driven megafires. Without human stewardship, fire-adapted forests risk being permanently lost and replaced by non-forested ecosystems, the study warns.
“After 130 years of fire suppression, most of the western US is contending with an enormous wildfire debt,” said Katharyn Duffy, senior scientist at Vibrant Planet and a co-author of the study. “It’s not a question of if these forests will burn, but when, and where.”
The team analyzed 216 thinning treatments carried out in California’s Central Sierra in 2016, comparing them to untreated areas through years of drought and wildfires, including the Dixie, Caldor, and North Complex megafires.
Findings showed that management reduced average wildfire severity by 32% and cut high-severity fires by 88%.
Ethan Yackulic, the study’s lead author, noted that traditional wildfire models could not capture the scale of recent fires.
“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,” he said.
The research highlights the importance of follow-up treatments, such as prescribed burns, and suggests that larger-scale interventions deliver stronger fire-risk reduction and carbon-stabilization benefits.
“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?” said Sophie Gilbert, director of science strategy at Vibrant Planet.
Gilbert added that restoring forests requires sustained human commitment, but in return, forests safeguard carbon storage, water, biodiversity, and other ecosystem services.
The study also points to new opportunities for financing restoration work. Blue Forest researchers say that proven carbon benefits from forest treatments could unlock additional funding streams to support long-term management across the wildfire-prone West.
