Table 2.

Examples of how fire regimes have changed during the industrial era, from a representative cross-section of biomes from low to high latitudes. This ongoing transition is described in Fig. 3, in which pre-industrial fire regimes correspond to pyric phases C and D, and post-industrial fire regimes correspond to pyric phases E and F

Biome	Pre-industrial fire regime	Post-industrial fire regime
Tropical rain forest	Very infrequent low-intensity surface fires with negligible long-term effects on biodiversity	Frequent surface fires associated with forest clearance causing a switch to flammable grassland or agricultural fields
Tropical savanna	Frequent fires in dry season causing spatial heterogeneity in tree density	Reduced fire due to heavy grazing causing increased woody species recruitment
Mid-latitude desert	Infrequent fires following wet periods that enable fuel build-up	Frequent fires due to the introduction of alien flammable grasses
Mid-latitude North American seasonally dry forests	Frequent low-intensity surface fires limiting recruitment of trees	Fire suppression causing high densities of juveniles and infrequent high-intensity crown fires
Boreal forest	Infrequent high-intensity crown fires causing replacement of entire forest stands	Increased high-intensity wildfires associated with global warming causing loss of soil carbon and switch to treeless vegetation