Ames, Iowa — May 7, 2026 — The Council for Agricultural Science and Technology (CAST) has released Integrated Management of Fire-Adapted Invasive Plants That Change Wildfire Regimes, a peer-reviewed science publication examining how fire-adapted invasive plants alter wildfire behavior across the United States — and what land managers, policymakers and practitioners can do about it. The publication was unveiled during a free public webinar on May 6, 2026, and is now publicly available at cast-science.org.
The publication is co-chaired by Matthew Baur, Director of the Western Integrated Pest Management Center, and Gregory Dahl, CAST Representative for the Western Society of Weed Science and former president of the Weed Science Society of America. The author team includes 11 scientists from leading universities, federal agencies and research institutions across the United States.
“It’s a big issue — and it’s not just a rancher issue. It’s not just a farmer issue,” said Brian Mealor, Professor and Director of the Sheridan Research & Extension Center and the Institute for Managing Annual Grasses Invading Natural Ecosystems at the University of Wyoming, who presented the publication’s key findings during the webinar. “There are societal issues that are definitely impacted by millions of acres that have been shifted from highly productive, diverse, largely native dominated plant communities across the US — not just the Western US.”
The publication addresses a gap that has long been absent from the wildfire policy conversation: the role of invasive plants in altering fire regimes. Species such as cheatgrass (Bromus tectorum) and cogongrass (Imperata cylindrica) don’t simply survive fire — they exploit it, loading landscapes with fine, continuous fuels that increase fire frequency and intensity and give the invader a competitive advantage over native vegetation after each burn. Capital losses from California wildfires alone exceeded $150 billion in 2018. Federal firefighting costs run approximately $3 billion per year. An estimated 50 million homes sit in the wildland-urban interface.
But as Dahl noted during the webinar, the problem cuts both ways: “I thought the biggest issue was herbicide-resistant weeds, and I have become convinced that in fact invasive weeds may in fact be a much bigger issue — and we certainly need all the help we can get.”
The publication also examines invasive plants that suppress fire rather than fuel it — a dynamic that is equally damaging to native ecosystems but receives far less attention in policy discussions. Species such as Brazilian peppertree (Schinus terebinthifolia), by outcompeting native grasses and reducing fine fuels, can disrupt the fire regimes that fire-adapted ecosystems depend on.
During the webinar, Baur described how these ecosystem-level changes are playing out in real time: “These ecosystems that we see in the Western United States — but I would also argue you see it in the Southeastern United States — are adapted to fire. They are accustomed to burning routinely, but not at the frequency and the intensity that we’re currently seeing today. A big part of that is the type of fuels that are now on the landscape, which are vastly different than what we used to see.”
“CAST’s mission is to connect scientific expertise with the people and institutions that need it most,” said Chris Boomsma, CEO of CAST. “This publication does exactly that. Invasive plant management has been a missing piece of the wildfire policy conversation for too long, and this work gives policymakers, land managers and practitioners the scientific foundation they need to act.”
The publication covers integrated pest management approaches — including biological, chemical, cultural and mechanical control methods — as well as revegetation and restoration strategies following invasion and wildfire. Regional case studies from California, the Southeastern United States and the Sagebrush Steppe illustrate how these dynamics play out across distinct ecosystems and fire regimes.
Greg Dahl closed the webinar with a call to action: “The weeds are winning and we don’t like that. We need your help. We need all of your support — and we can do a lot.”
The full publication is available free of charge at: cast-science.org/publication/
A recording of the release webinar is available at: youtu.be/gLlq0AiY1O8.
