Study area in Northwestern Madagascar.

Maps and satellite imagery showing: (A) Precipitation patterns in Madagascar as defined by the number of months with rainfall less than 60mm (precipitation data is from [33]) and forested area as of 2022 (following the method of [5]); (B) enlarged panel of Ankarafantsika National Park; and (C) the study area on January 26, 2014 and (D) on December 15, 2021. Images in (C) and (D) are Landsat-8 images courtesy of the U.S. Geological Survey.</p

Fire history within the 3052-ha study area of Ankarafantsika National Park.

(A) The number of times fire has occurred (one, two, and three times indicated by color; Landsat-8 images courtesy of the U.S. Geological Survey); (B) the total area burnt for each type of burn history for each year; (C) burn severity as measured by the maximum detected differenced normalized burn ratio (max dNBR) in relation to the total number of fires experienced with ‘n’ being the number of pixels observed for each burn count.</p

Differences in forest structure across varying burn histories.

Differences in forest structure as described by plant area index (A), canopy cover (B), and canopy height (C), across the number of fire occurrences; and over months since the last fire (D-F), with ‘n’ denoting the number of data points from the Global Ecosystem Dynamics Investigation (GEDI) lidar sensor observed per factor. Groups in subplots A, B, and C not sharing lowercase letters are significantly different each other (p < 0.05) based on Dunn’s post hoc tests.</p

Kruskal-Wallis (chi-statistic and p-value) and Dunn tests (p-values) on plant area index, canopy cover, and canopy height across varying numbers of forest fires.

Kruskal-Wallis (chi-statistic and p-value) and Dunn tests (p-values) on plant area index, canopy cover, and canopy height across varying numbers of forest fires.</p

Typical conditions of vegetation in the study area after the fire in October 2021.

(A) Non-burnt and once burnt area at left and right of an ecotourism trail that served as a firebreak, (B) Boundary of twice burnt area (front) and once burnt area (back), (C) Unburned dead wood that will become fuel for the next fire, (D) Third burnt area with bare white sand.</p

Linear mixed models testing for the effects of the number of fires (n_fires) and the number of months since the last fire (n_months) on three attributes of forest structure: Plant area index, canopy cover, and canopy height.

Also included in the model are two random variables: the park’s management zone (community, buffer, or service) and season (dry season May-October vs. wet season November-April). (DOCX)</p