Restoration relevance of recent National Fire Plan treatments in forests of the western United States

The US National Fire Plan (NFP) is among the largest forest‐restoration initiatives worldwide, removing wild‐land fuels on about 11 million hectares and costing over $6 billion. We evaluated the extent to which areas treated under the NFP – from 2004 to 2008, in forest ecosystems outside the wildland–urban interface in 11 western states (“West”) – were predicted to need restoration, due to disruption of fire regimes and expected fuels buildup....