Sponsored by the Southwest Fire Science Consortium
Presented by Dr. Patrick Belmont, Utah State University
Wildfire has increased 20-fold in the last 30 years in the Western U.S., partly due to climate change and partly due to forest and fire management practices. At the same time, many water resources are drying up. And fish populations throughout the western US are struggling due to water diversions, instream barriers, invasive species, and dwindling flows. This talk will integrate across these three big, converging problems, reframing the role of wildfire in western ecosystems, discussing how wildfire, fish, and water resource problems are interrelated, and proposing solutions that match the scale of the problem.