Fire-driven tick-host dynamics and their impact on tick-borne disease spread

Traditionally employed as an ecological tool to prevent wildfires, controlled burns may also reduce the populations of vectors like ticks, thereby helping to manage vector-borne diseases. In this study, we analyze an impulsive ordinary differential equation (ODE) model that incorporates fire-driven tick-host population dynamics and the transmission of a tick-borne disease with co-feeding pathway. We assess the effects of fire frequency and intensity on tick dynamics and the transmission of tick-borne diseases. Additionally, we examine the impact of fire control when disease transmission occurs not only through systemic infection but also via co-feeding. Our findings highlight that fire control outcomes depend not only on the efficacy and periodicity of interventions, but also on the host-vector population structure, as well as the epidemiological characteristics of the disease, such as its transmission mode.