Burn severity and pre-fire seral state interact to shape vegetation responses to fire in a young, western Cascade Range forest

Wildfire size and frequency are increasing across the western U.S., affecting large areas of young, second-growth forest originating after logging and burning. Despite their prevalence in the western Cascade landscape, we have a poor understanding of how these young stands respond to fire or how their responses differ from older, undisturbed forests, which are well studied. We explore these questions using pre- and early post-fire data from a young ( Keywords: Early seral; Fire severity; Forest understory; Functional group; Seral state; Species diversity