Journal profile · ECOLOGY-FORESTRY
Fire Ecology
ISSN 1933-9747 · Springer International Publishing · UNITED STATES · Founded 2005
Fire Ecology: CAS Zone 3 · Environmental Science & Ecology (2025 upgraded edition); impact factor 6.71; fully open access; APC about USD 2,690; median 196 days to acceptance (96 articles, last 24 months); 89 articles in 2025; indexed in SCIE and Scopus.
Scope
Aims, scope and focus
Fire Ecology is published by Springer International Publishing and is in Zone 3 of Environmental Science & Ecology in the CAS Journal Ranking (2025 upgraded edition). By OpenAlex counts of its recent articles, its largest topics are Fire effects on ecosystems, Rangeland and Wildlife Management and Ecology and Vegetation Dynamics Studies, together about 67.3% of its articles. (generated from OpenAlex topic counts and CAS ranking data)
Fire Ecology, an open access publication, is the international scientific journal of the Association for Fire Ecology. It publishes peer-reviewed, impactful articles on all ecological and management aspects relating to wildland fire. While the topics considered for publication are broad, manuscripts submitted to Fire Ecology must have a direct link to wildland fire and should include discussion of the ecological, management, or policy implications. Wildfire and prescribed fire research are welcome. Only high-quality manuscripts with wide international appeal will be considered. We welcome submissions on topics that include a broad range of research on the ecological relationships of fire to its environment, including, but not limited to: Fire ecology (physical and biological fire effects, fire regimes, etc.) Fire management Fire science and modeling Wildland fuel Inter- or cross-disciplinary fire-related topics Wildland fire law and policy Wildfire planning and risk management Social aspects (geography, sociology, anthropology, etc.) of wildland fire Wildland fire technology transfer products Fire Ecology Author Guidelines Authors are strongly encouraged to read these Fire Ecology Author Guidelines prior to submitting to Fire Ecology. Questions about the scope and fit of a manuscript for Fire Ecology can be sent to editor@fireecology.net. Note that these guidelines are in addition to the general submission guidelines.
From the journal's Aims & Scope
Research area (LetPub): ECOLOGY-FORESTRY
Editor-in-chief Jeffrey M. KanePublisher website
Editorial board by country: 2 in mainland China (about 2%); most named United States 62, Spain 5, Australia 5, Canada 4, Mainland China 2 (92 members with a country) Editorial board ↗Publisher website ·
Main research topics OpenAlex counts of recent articles; shares are approximate
- Fire effects on ecosystemsEnvironmental Science37.3%
- Rangeland and Wildlife ManagementEnvironmental Science16.7%
- Ecology and Vegetation Dynamics StudiesEnvironmental Science13.3%
- Landslides and related hazardsEnvironmental Science4.7%
- Plant Water Relations and Carbon DynamicsEnvironmental Science3.9%
- Fire dynamics and safety researchEngineering2.8%
- Tree-ring climate responsesEarth and Planetary Sciences2.2%
- Disaster Management and ResilienceSocial Sciences1.8%
Rankings & indexing
CAS ranking and database indexing
CAS Journal Ranking
CAS Journal Ranking, upgraded edition (March 2025)Environmental Science & Ecology Zone 3
| Level | Category | Zone |
|---|---|---|
| Major | Environmental Science & Ecology | Zone 3 |
| Minor | Forestry | Zone 2 |
| Minor | Ecology | Zone 3 |
Top journal: noReview journal: no
CAS Xinrui Journal Ranking (March 2026)Environmental Science & Ecology Zone 2
| Level | Category | Zone |
|---|---|---|
| Major | Environmental Science & Ecology | Zone 2 |
| Minor | Ecology | Zone 2 |
| Minor | Forestry | Zone 1 |
Top journal: noReview journal: not marked
CAS Journal Ranking, previous upgraded edition (December 2023)Environmental Science & Ecology Zone 3
| Level | Category | Zone |
|---|---|---|
| Major | Environmental Science & Ecology | Zone 3 |
| Minor | Forestry | Zone 2 |
| Minor | Ecology | Zone 3 |
Top journal: noReview journal: no
Database indexing
SCIEScopusDOAJLetPub
International journal early-warning lists: not listed in any editionLetPub
Indexing the journal's website claims
CAB AbstractsCurrent ContentsPublisher website
Other: Google Scholar, EBSCO, ProQuest, Dimensions, CNKI, Baidu, Astrophysics Data System, Naver, OCLC, Portico, CLOCKSS
As the journal's website lists them, not checked against each database; for Web of Science editions the records above apply.
Editions, and major and minor categories, are shown separately and never merged into one zone; check which edition your institution uses before you submit or report.
Metrics
Impact metrics and publication volume
Impact
- Impact factor
- 6.71LetPub ·
- Impact factor (publisher) 2025
- 6.7Publisher website ·
- 5-year impact factor (publisher) 2025
- 6.9Publisher website ·
- CiteScore 2026-06
- 8.1LetPub ·
- SJR 2026-06
- 1.5LetPub ·
- SNIP 2026-06
- 1.62LetPub ·
- h-index
- 23LetPub ·
- h-index
- 65OpenAlex ·
- i10-index
- 438OpenAlex ·
- 2-year mean citedness
- 5.69OpenAlex ·
- Self-citation rate
- 7.5%LetPub ·
- Share of gold OA articles
- 100%LetPub ·
Volume
- Articles per year
- 87LetPub ·
- Articles per year (publisher)
- 2,025Publisher website ·
- Downloads per year (publisher) 2025
- 837,000Publisher website ·
Articles by year OpenAlex count · 931 in total · the current year is incomplete
| Year | Articles | Open access | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | 148 | 148 | 66 |
| 2025 | 89 | 89 | 382 |
| 2024 | 107 | 107 | 1,511 |
| 2023 | 72 | 72 | 1,702 |
| 2022 | 34 | 34 | 756 |
| 2021 | 37 | 37 | 1,025 |
Sources count differently and were observed at different times, so each source's own value is kept; "publisher" marks figures from the journal's website.
Review & acceptance
Review time and acceptance
Review time from article dates manuscript dates registered with Crossref · to
196 daysMedian, submission to acceptance · P25–P75 129 days – 262 days
- Acceptance to online
- median 32 days (96 articles)
- Submission to online
- median 229 days
- Sample
- 96 articles with submission and acceptance dates (257 in the window); the latest was accepted on
Only articles that were accepted and published are counted, not the time spent on rejected manuscripts, so this usually runs longer than a publisher's "time to first decision".
Other sources
- Average review time (community reports)
- about 20 weeksLetPub ·
- Submission to first decision
- 9 daysPublisher website ·
- Submission to publication (journal-reported)
- about 20 weeksDOAJ ·
- Peer review
- Single anonymous peer reviewDOAJ
Community reports come from authors' own submissions (confidence 0.5) and are not a promise from the journal; for publisher figures, the journal's own definitions apply.
Fees & open access
APC and open-access policy
Fully open accessDOAJ
Every article is open access; authors usually pay an article processing charge (APC).
| Source | APC | Fee waiver | License | Observed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| DOAJ | EUR 2,290 / USD 2,690 / GBP 1,990 | Yes | CC BY | |
| OpenAlex | USD 2,590 / EUR 2,190 / GBP 1,890 | — | — | |
| LetPub | GBP 1,790 / USD 2,490 / EUR 2,090 | Yes | — | |
| Publisher website | GBP 1,990 / USD 2,690 / EUR 2,290 / GBP 1,005 / USD 1,530 / EUR 1,260 | — | — |
The journal's website is authoritative for fees; sources were observed at different times and each keeps its own value, without averaging.
Submission
Article types and submission policies (journal website)
Open calls for papers1, by deadline
Publisher websiteWhat to prepare3 items from the author guidelines
- Reference style
- Numbered, in order of citation
- Templates
- LaTeX and Word
- Suggested reviewers
- Optional
Article types accepted9
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- reviewResearch Review Brief Report Editorial Case Study Book review Conference Proceedings Obituary PerspectiveLength not stated
Policy excerpts from the journal's websiteData availability, License & copyright, Open access, Peer review
- Data availability Formatting the 'Availability of data and materials' section of your manuscript
Data availability strongly encouraged or required; deposit in public repositories or include in paper/supporting files. Model summary
The following format for the 'Availability of data and materials section of your manuscript should be used:
Source ↗Publisher website ·- License & copyright Licensing and copyright
Open access under CC BY licence; authors retain copyright. Model summary
Creative Commons licences Open access articles in Springer Nature journals are published under Creative Commons licences. These provide an industry-standard framework to support easy re-use of open access material. Under Creative Commons licences, authors retain copyright of their articles. Fire Ecology articles are published open access under a CC BY licence (Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 Inte…
Source ↗Publisher website ·- Open access Benefits of open access
Publishing open access (OA) offers a number of benefits, including greater reach and readership for your work: Cited more 1.6x more citations of OA articles than non-OA articles across all subjects Downloaded more 4x more downloads of OA articles than non-OA articles Greater impact 2.5x more Altmetric attention. OA articles attracted 1.9x more news mentions and 1.2x more policy mentions Open acces…
Source ↗Publisher website ·- Peer review Peer review policy
Peer review is the process used to evaluate the quality of a manuscript before publication. Independent researchers in the relevant field assess submitted manuscripts to check their validity and robustness. Their feedback guides editors in making publication decisions. Typically, two or more experts evaluate each manuscript based on three main criteria: scientific robustness: is the research metho…
Source ↗Publisher website ·
Excerpts are quoted from the journal's website; "model summary" lines are written by Workers AI and checked against the text. The journal's website is authoritative.
Profile
Publication details and official links
- Publisher
- Springer International Publishing
- Country or region
- UNITED STATES
- Language
- English
- Founded
- 2005
- ISSN
- 1933-9747
- Official links
- Journal homepage ↗DOAJ
- Submission system ↗Publisher website
- Author guidelines ↗LetPub
- Aims & Scope ↗LetPub
- Special issues ↗Publisher website
- APC information ↗DOAJ
- Fee waivers ↗DOAJ
- Open access statement ↗DOAJ
- License & copyright ↗DOAJ
- Peer review process ↗LetPub
- Editorial board ↗LetPub
- Plagiarism policy ↗DOAJ
FAQ
Frequently asked questions about Fire Ecology
What CAS zone is Fire Ecology in?
In the 2025 upgraded edition of the CAS Journal Ranking, Fire Ecology is in Zone 3 of Environmental Science & Ecology, and in Zone 2 of the minor category Forestry / Ecology. In the 2026 Xinrui edition it is in Zone 2 of Environmental Science & Ecology. Zones from different editions, and from major and minor categories, are not interchangeable.
What is the impact factor of Fire Ecology?
The latest impact factor listed by LetPub is 6.71; CiteScore 8.1, h-index 65.
How long does peer review take at Fire Ecology?
Based on the dates recorded on 96 articles published between October 2024 and October 2026 (the last 24 months), the median time from submission to acceptance is 196 days (interquartile range 129–262 days); authors report an average review time of about 20 weeks. Article statistics cover accepted papers only, publisher figures follow the journal's own definitions, and community reports come from authors' own submissions; none is a promise from the journal.
What are the manuscript requirements of Fire Ecology?
According to the journal's author guidelines: Reference style: Numbered, in order of citation; Templates: LaTeX and Word; Suggested reviewers: Optional. A model extracted these from the author guidelines and each was checked against the text; check the latest version on the journal's website before submitting.
Where are the editorial board members of Fire Ecology based?
Of the 92 board members whose country the journal's board page names, 2 (about 2%) are in mainland China; the countries named most often are United States (62), Spain (5) and Australia (5). Counted from the institutions listed on the board page; for reference only.
Which databases index Fire Ecology?
According to LetPub and DOAJ records, Fire Ecology is indexed in SCIE, Scopus and DOAJ. The journal's website also lists CAB Abstracts and Current Contents; that list has not been checked against each database.
Is Fire Ecology open access, and what is the APC?
Fire Ecology is a fully open-access journal. APC about USD 2,690.
Sources and updates
The facts on this page come from LetPub, OpenAlex, DOAJ, Publisher website; every figure is tagged with its source and the date it was observed, and conflicting values are kept per source. LetPub source page: view ↗ (archived 2026-08-25). Last updated: .