Extreme Fires Portal
Welcome to the Extreme Fires Portal
In recent years, wildland fires have become more widespread with significant ecological, social, and economic impact. Fewer than 5% of all fires account for the majority of area burned and costs of suppression. This interdisciplinary research project funded by the NASA-IDS program is entitled, "Quantifying the biogeoscientific and societal impacts of extreme wildland fires," from the regional to community scales in the US northern Rockies.
Several challenges and uncertainties exist related to the magnitude, duration, and drivers of extreme wildland fire events, and their wider impacts (temporal trajectories and spatial characteristics) and feedbacks with biogeoscientific and societal processes.
- Challenge A: Defining Extreme Wildland Fire Events
- Challenge B: Evaluating the Characteristics and Trajectories of Extreme Wildland Fire Events in Changing Physical and Political Climates
- Challenge C: Enabling Future Predictions, Mitigation, and Lessons Learning
The 38 fires identified as potentially extreme based on the intersection of three or more fire criteria of high burn severity (B), size (S), duration (D) and wildland–urban interface (W) (Results presented in Lannom et al., 2013).
- Biophysical and Social Research
- Ecology Working Group
- Social Science Working Group
- Remote Sensing Working Group
- Integrative Activities
- Data
- Maps
In recent years wildland fires have become more widespread with significant ecological, social, and economic impacts. Fewer than 5% of all fires account for the majority of area burned and the costs of fire suppression. We propose interdisciplinary research to quantifying the biogeoscientific (biophysical, biogeochemical, and biogeographical) and societal impacts of extreme wildland fires at community and regional scales in the US northern Rockies. The complex terrain in the northern Rockies offers steep environmental and social gradients to understand how and why landscapes change in response to extreme disturbances, as well as the social and environmental implications of those changes. The social gradient includes wildland interface community experience, while the environmental gradient covers aridlands, such as shrublands and grasslands, to mesic mixed conifer forests and subalpine ecosystems. Fires in these systems result in varying public and policy maker experiences and land management decisions in forested and rangeland ecosystems.
The goals of this research include:
- Characterize the nature, magnitude, and distinguishing attributes of extreme wildland fire events;
- Assess the full impact of the extreme wildland fire events (near-term and long-term) on both natural and human systems;
- Characterize biophysical and social recovery processes and trajectories from selected extreme fire events; and
- Understand how human actions to mitigate and/or recover from the impacts of past extreme wildland fire events have succeeded or failed, including the role that adaptive capacity and stakeholder knowledge play in effectively responding to fires.
The entire proposal for project work can be viewed here (pdf).
Objective: Development of a fire recovery chronosequence |
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Wells et al (in review) developed an alternative fire recovery chronosequence methodology that couples 100+ years of aerial photography data (1900-2000) with Landsat imagery (1984-2007) to create a continuous temporal series of vegetation mortality from fires for 346,266 ha. There is no other data set like this available that includes spatially explicit patches by burn severity class for such a large area and long time.
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Objective: Assessing ecological recovery following extreme fires |
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Kemp et al (ongoing) are evaluating vegetation recovery at 183 sites through analyzing seedling densities following 21 individual extreme fires events within lower montane forests, focusing on understanding how environmental gradients (e.g., climate, elevation, heat loading, aspect) and post-fire legacies (e.g., burn severity, patch size, canopy cover) influence spatial patterns of tree regeneration in forests of the Northern Rockies.
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Bowman-Prideaux et al (in prep) are evaluating how post-fire rehabilitation treatments alter the effects of fire frequency, intensity, or fire interval on plant community trajectories.
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Defining Extreme Wildfires from Social Science Research |
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The social science team completed a case study in year 3 consisting of in-depth interviews to validate and improve our understanding of the factors that affect people’s perceptions of what makes a wildfire ‘extreme.’ The 2012 Dahl fire near Roundup, MT was ignited by lightning and burned 22,045 acres from June 26 to July 3 in the mixed ponderosa pine sage grass prairie terrain. Initial estimates from the National Interagency Fire Center were that there were over $1.6 million in damages, including 73 homes and 150 other structures. The social science team conducted 51 in-person interviews in the summer of 2013 with residents, land and fire managers, emergency personnel, community leaders, real estate agents, insurance agents, and other stakeholders affected by the fire. Results:
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Evaluation of the characteristics and trajectories for extreme wildland fire events in changing physical and political climates – The ‘25 Fires’ Project |
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A multilevel modeling approach was implemented to survey people across 25 fires (representing a range of duration, acres burned, and fire severity measures) in the northwest U.S. that occurred in 2011 or 2012. This approach revealed which themes and factors relate to how people experience a wildfire (e.g., people’s perceptions of impacts and attitudes towards fire management), revealing strong consistency across various fires and contexts. Initial Results:
Ongoing: Throughout the summer and fall of 2014, we will continue conducting statistical analysis by testing multilevel and linear regression models to predict perceptions of the extremity of a fire, as well as perceptions of landscape recovery, using the predictor variables mentioned above. We will also explore psychometric properties of some of our measures in more detail, which will contribute to future wildfire and other natural disaster research. |
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Assessing social perceptions of landscape recovery |
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The interviews in 2013 revealed that an individual’s relationship with the landscape and their understanding of fire as a natural part of the ecology of the area was important to how people reacted to the landscape impacts from the Dahl fire. These initial findings encouraged us to conduct follow-up interviews in the summer of 2014 to further investigate people’s perceptions of post-wildfire landscape recovery, a combination of Landsat satellite imagery, vegetation indices (NBR and NDVI), and high resolution imagery will be used to identify areas demonstrating different trends in post-fire vegetation recovery. Results: Aesthetic impacts to the landscape are important to perceptions of the severity of wildfire impacts. Interviews about the Dahl fire confirmed this finding and led to a more in-depth and on-going research project that integrates biophysical and social sciences to better understand how people perceive landscape recovery after wildfire events. The goal is to improve management and communication responses before, during, and after a wildfire in efforts to reduce the negative impacts from an often drastically changed landscape. Ongoing: These datasets will be presented to interviewees in 2014 to elicit greater understandings of the spatial and temporal aspects of how people perceive landscape recovery after ‘extreme’ fire events, how their connections to the landscape and their mental models of fire as part of the ecosystem affect their perceptions, and how their perceptions influence their attitudes towards wildfire management. |
Defining Extreme Wildfires from Geospatial DataThe entire project team (social sciences, remote sensing scientists, and ecologists) worked together to explore whether potentially extreme wildland fire events could be determined through analyzing different geospatial metrics. This analysis has led to Lannom et al (2014, IJWF). In this study, a temporal series of Landsat imagery was acquired from 1984-2009 for all fires that occurred within the western United States. This temporal series was analyzed to identify both widespread fire years (i.e. years with significantly larger quantities of area burned) and individually extreme wildfires, using metrics based on fire size, percentage of area burned with high vegetation mortality, duration, and distance to the Wildland Urban Interface (WUI). Potentially extreme wildland fire events were identified using the cross-section of distributional statistics for each metric. Results: An important result was recognition and agreement of the methodology used to characterize (A) “extreme fire years” and to characterize (B) “individual wildland fires as extreme”. Product A: Method to identify “Extreme Disturbance Years”In agreement with the work of Dillon et al (2011, Ecosphere), the project team within the Lannom et al (2014) paper used the Tukey’s 75th percentile + 1.5 interquartile–range (IQR) rule to identify statistically significant “extreme fire years”. Importantly, this concept can be readily applied to evaluating “extreme years” of any disturbance from geospatial data acquired from NASA assets, e.g., “extreme hurricane years”, or “extreme flood years”. Product B: Method to identify “Extreme Individual Disturbance Events”The method presented in Lannom et al (2014) collates continuous distributions of various geospatial metrics related to biophysical and social impacts of fires. On the continuous data the 90th, 95th and 99th percentiles were calculated and the fires identified. Fires that were present in these percentiles for 75% of the tests were identified as potentially extreme. This was done separately for the 90th, 95th, and 99th.
The project team has also conducted and completed a series of projects to assess the utility of various geospatial, ecology, and social science metrics as indicators of extreme fires:
Results: We demonstrate that the MTBS burned area product has high commission errors (4-16%) and if it is used to generate time series data of area burned, the burned area perimeters should be constrained by spectral index based classifications of burned and unburned surfaces. This work was also partially funded under award NNX11AF19G (Boschetti).
Results: Results indicate a significant relationship: FRE per kilogram of fuel consumed =-5.32 WC+ 3.025 (were WC = water content) and imply that not taking into account fuel moisture variations in the assumed relationship between FRE and fuel consumed can lead to systematic biases. A similar relationship has been determined for another pine species and ongoing research in summer 2014 is evaluating peat fuels. Product C: Method todetermine fuel moisture controls on fire radiative energy (FRE) retrievals
Results: They found that daily area burned is a poor predictor of burn severity as the correlation is significant but weak, even for the very largest (95th percentile) of Daily Area Burned (Birch 2013, Birch et al 2014). This suggests that other factors influence burn severity. They found that topography and vegetation were more important than climate and weather in influencing vegetation mortality (Birch 2013, Birch et al. in review).
Results: Carbon in trees killed by wildfires during 1984-2010 was 146-285 Tg, representing 2.4-4.6% of the total carbon in trees in the western US, and was highest in northern California/southern Oregon, central Idaho, and northwest Wyoming (Appendix B, Figure 8). Product D: Methodology to construct forest-fire chronosequence from Landsat imagery.In year 3 we made substantial progress on exploring the utility of different temporal series data to characterize trajectories. Data sets included Landsat, sub-orbital aerial photography, and agency records of burned area. Highlights in development of the fire recovery chronosequence include:
Results: It is possible to assemble a 100 year post-fire recovery chronosequence for forested systems within the project area. Ongoing research in preparation for Remote Sensing of Environment includes incorporating USDA Forest Service Forest Inventory Analysis data for these areas to link in situ recovery with spectral recovery.
Result: They concluded that too much variation exists to reliably use the method in these fires. Chronosequences in rangelands are much more difficult to identify than in forests because of the seasonal variability and differences between ecological sites. Due to these issues they are changing direction and are now looking at quantifying change based on ecological site and pre-fire vegetation cover levels. |
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Project Meetings
- The PI and members of the project team have met regularly this project year to coordinate tasks. A project meeting took place October 2012 at the University of Idaho campus in Moscow, Idaho. The Project PI, Alistair Smith, project co-PIs, collaborators, post-docs and graduate students were in attendance.
Conference Sessions Organized
- In December 2012, PI Smith and CoI Newingham convened a Biogeosciences session at the America Geophysical Union’s Fall Meeting on “Disturbance Impacts and Responses.”
- In December 2013, PI Smith and David Reed convened a Biogeosciences session at the America Geophysical Union’s Fall Meeting on “Vulnerability, Disturbances, Impacts, and Responses.” Eight posters representing work completed by the project team were presented.
- Most of the NASA project team was involved in hosting a series of climate-extension workshops across Idaho and Montana on a complementary NSF IGERT project.
Publications
The entire project team (social sciences, remote sensing scientists, and ecologists) worked together to explore whether potentially extreme wildland fire events could be determined through analyzing different geospatial metrics. This analysis has led to -
- Lannom, K.O., Tinkham, W.T., Smith, A.M.S., Abatzoglou, J., Newingham, B.A., Hall, T.E., Morgan P., Strand E.K., Paveglio, T.B.,Anderson, J.W, and Sparks A.M. 2014. Defining extreme wildland fires using geospatial data. International Journal of Wildland Fire, 23, 322-377, doi: 10.1071/WF13065.
We recently completed a synthesis study, in press in Remote Sensing of Environment that reviews literature that has applied remote sensing imagery to characterize vegetation vulnerability (retrospectively and prospectively). The synthesis included a review of how vegetation vulnerability has been characterized by geospatial data in a wide array of natural (not managed) terrestrial ecosystems, including temperate forests, tropical forests, boreal forests, semi-arid lands, coastal areas, and the arctic. The synthesis highlights key studies that have quantitatively characterized vulnerability in a predictive manner and then presents guidelines on how such spatial data layers can be used to construct spatially explicit decision support tools that can predict vegetation vulnerability under future scenarios (i.e. early warning systems).
- Smith, A.M.S., Kolden, C.A., Tinkham, W.T., Talhelm, A., Marshall, J.D., Hudak, A.T., Boschetti, L., Falkowski, M.J., Greenberg, J.A., Anderson, J.W., Kliskey, A., Alessa, L., Keefe, R.F., and Gosz, J. 2014. Remote Sensing the Vulnerability of Vegetation in Natural Terrestrial Ecosystems. Remote Sensing of Environment, doi: 10.1016/j.rse.2014.03.038.
Presentations
- Birch, Donovan S., Penelope Morgan, Crystal A. Kolden, John T. Abatzoglou, Gregory K. Dillon, Andrew T. Hudak, and Alistair M.S. Smith. 2014. Daily Fire Weather and Environmental Factors Influencing Burn Severity for 42 Forest Fires of Central Idaho and Western Montana, 2005-2011. Poster presentation, Large Wildland Fires: Social, Political & Ecological Effects, University of Montana, Missoula, USA. May 19-23, 2014.
- Birch, Donovan S., Penelope Morgan, Crystal A. Kolden, John T. Abatzoglou, Gregory K. Dillon, Andrew T. Hudak, and Alistair M.S. Smith. 2014. Daily Fire Weather and Environmental Factors Influencing Burn Severity for 42 Forest Fires of Central Idaho and Western Montana, 2005-2011. Poster Video presentation for Large Wildland Fires: Social, Political & Ecological Effects, University of Montana, Missoula, USA. May 19-23, 2014. Available online: https://www.dropbox.com/s/y3799dsgubsmz8t/AFE_Movie_Birch.mp4
- Birch, Donovan S., Penelope Morgan, Crystal A. Kolden, John T. Abatzoglou, Gregory K. Dillon, Andrew T. Hudak, and Alistair M.S. Smith. 2013. Daily Fire Weather and Environmental Factors Influencing Burn Severity for 42 Forest Fires of Central Idaho and Western Montana, 2005-2011. Poster presentation, American Geophysical Union, December, 2013.
- Lannom, K.O., Tinkham, W.T., Smith, A.M.S., Abatzoglou, J.T., Newingham, B.A., Hall, T.E., Morgan, P., Strand, E.K., Paveglio, T.B., Anderson, J.W. and Sparks, A.M. “Defining extreme wildland fires using geospatial and ancillary metrics”, Abstract B13I-0623, presented at 2013 Fall Meeting, AGU, San Francisco, Calif., 7-13 Dec.
- Morgan, P., Birch, D., Kolden, C.A. and Smith, A.M.S. “Do Large Fire Runs Result in More Severe Fires?”, Abstract B13I-0633, presented at 2013 Fall Meeting, AGU, San Francisco, Calif., 7-13 Dec.
- Birch, Donovan S., Penelope Morgan, Alistair M.S. Smith Andrew T. Hudak Crystal A. Kolden, Gregory K. Dillon. 2012. Burn severity and daily areas burned on three large, multiday wildfires across central Idaho and western Montana, 2005 to 2007. Poster presentation, Society of American Foresters, National Convention, October 2012.
- Smith A.M.S., “Remote sensing of fire intensity and severity” Invited Presentation, South Dakota State University, October 2012.
- Sparks, A, Smith, A.M.S., Tinkham, W.T., and Yokelson, R.J., "Understanding how seasonality and shifts in species composition impact emission estimates in semi-arid ecosystems", Abstract B31A-0375, presented at 2012 Fall Meeting, AGU, San Francisco, Calif., 3-7 Dec.
- Hall, T.E., Kooistra, C.M., Paveglio, T., Gress, S. and Smith A.M.S. “Social and Biophysical Predictors of Public Perceptions of Extreme Fires” Abstract B13I-0627, presented at 2013 Fall Meeting, AGU, San Francisco, Calif., 7-13 Dec.
- Argona, A.K., Sparks, A.M.,Tinkham, W.T., Smith, A.M.S., Boschetti, L. Newingham, B.A. and Lannom, K.O. “Preliminary assessment of the Monitoring Trends in Burn Severity burned area accuracy for shrub-steppe wildfires”, Abstract B13I-0629, presented at 2013 Fall Meeting, AGU, San Francisco, Calif., 7-13 Dec
- Morgan, P. 2014. Invited. Socio-Economic, Political and Ecological Impacts of Large Wildland Fires. Panel with Dan Bailey, Penny Morgan, and Matthew Thompson. Invited presentation. Large Wildland Fires: Social, Political & Ecological Effects, University of Montana, Missoula, USA. May 19-23, 2014.
- Kooistra, C., Hall, T.E., Paveglio, T., & Strand, E. (2014). Post-Wildfire Landscape recovery: Perspectives from remotely sensed images and social science data. Large Wildfire Conference, Association of Fire Ecology and International Association of Wildland Fire. Missoula, MT.
- Paveglio, T., Kooistra, C., Hall, T.E., & Pickering, T. (2014). Understanding the effect of large wildfires on residents’ well-being: What factors influence wildfire impact? Large Wildfire Conference, Association of Fire Ecology and International Association of Wildland Fire. Missoula, MT.
- Kooistra, C. (2014). Spatial and Temporal Aspects of People’s Perceptions of Post-Wildfire Landscape Change. Western Forestry Graduate Research Symposium, Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR.
- Morgan, P. 2014. Invited. Fire and Climate Change, Boise Public Library, Boise, ID, April 10, 2014.
- Wells, Ashley A., Penelope Morgan, Alistair M.S. Smith, Andrew T. Hudak, Jeffrey A. Hicke. 2014. Burn severity and vegetation response in the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness Area, 1900-2007. Poster presented at Large Wildland Fires: Social, Political & Ecological Effects. University of Montana, Missoula, USA. May 19-23, 2014.
- Wells, Ashley A., Penelope Morgan, Alistair M.S. Smith, Andrew T. Hudak, Jeffrey A. Hicke. 2013. Burn severity and vegetation response in the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness Area, 1900-2007. Poster presentation, American Geophysical Union, December, 2013.
- Lannom, K.O., Smith, A.M.S., Tinkham, W.T., Strand, E.K. and Satterberg, K. "Development of Extreme Wildland Fire Recovery Chronosequences for the Northern Rockies, U.S.", Abstract B31A-0397, presented at 2012 Fall Meeting, AGU, San Francisco, Calif., 3-7 Dec.
- Carroll, M., Paveglio, T., & Kallman, D. (2013). Exploring local perceptions and attributions of “extreme” wildfire impacts in Rural Montana. American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting. San Fran., CA.
- Kooistra, C., Hall, T.E., Paveglio, T., Carroll, M., and Smith, A.M. (2013). Perceptions of post-wildfire landscape change and recovery. American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting. San Fran., CA.
- Hall, T.E., Kooistra, C., Paveglio, T., Gress, S., Smith, A.M. (2013). Social and Biophysical Predictors of Public Perceptions of Extreme Fires. American Geophysical Union Fall Meeting. San Fran., CA.
- Sparks, A.M., Yokelson, R.J., Smith, A.M.S., Marshall, J.D. and Tinkham, W.T. “Understanding how seasonality and shifts in species composition impact emission estimates in semi-arid ecosystems”, Abstract A31C-0085, presented at 2013 Fall Meeting, AGU, San Francisco, Calif., 7-13 Dec.
- Carroll, M., Paveglio, T., & Hall, T.E. (2013). Firewise for Whom? Formal and informal means of adapting to the risk of wildland fire. International Association for Society and Natural Resources’ (IASNR) International Symposium for Society and Resource Management (ISSMR). Estes Park, CO.
- Hicke, J. A., “The Role of Biotic Disturbance Agents in Carbon-Climate Connections”, National Center for Atmospheric Research Advanced Study Program Summer Colloquium on Carbon-Climate Connections in the Earth System, 6-10 August 2013, Boulder, CO.
- Hicke, J. A., A. J. H. Meddens, C. D. Allen, and S. Edburg, “Impacts of Insects on Western U.S. Forests,” North American Carbon Program Fourth All-Investigator’s Meeting, 4-7 February 2013, Albuquerque, NM.
- Hicke, J. A., A. J. H. Meddens, and C. D. Allen, “Extreme disturbance events and the carbon cycle: Bark beetle outbreaks and wildfire in the western US,” North American Carbon Program Fourth All-Investigator’s Meeting, 4-7 February 2013, Albuquerque, NM.
- Wells, Ashley A., Penelope Morgan, Alistair M.S. Smith, Andrew T. Hudak, Jeffrey A. Hicke. 2012. Burn severity and vegetation response in the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness Area, 1900-2007. Poster presentation, Society of American Foresters, National Convention, October 2012. Award Outstanding Student Poster
- Wells, Ashley A., Penelope Morgan, Alistair M.S. Smith, Andrew T. Hudak, Jeffrey A. Hicke. 2012. Burn severity and vegetation response in the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness Area, 1900-2007. Poster presentation, Association for Fire Ecology, 5th International Fire Ecology and Management Congress: Uniting Research, Education, and Management, December 3-7, 2012. (Award Outstanding Student Poster)
- Kemp, K.B., P.E. Higuera, and P. Morgan. (2014, May). Post-fire tree recruitment in the U.S. Northern Rockies: The influence of seed source proximity and patch size. Invited Oral Presentation at the International Association of Wildland Fire and Association for Fire Ecology Large Wildfires Conference; Missoula, MT.
- Kemp, K.B., P.E. Higuera, and P. Morgan. (2014, August). Post-fire tree recruitment in the U.S. Northern Rockies: The influence of seed source proximity and environmental conditions. Oral Presentation at the Ecological Society of America Conference; Sacramento, CA.
Data
Lannom, K.O., Tinkham, W.T., Smith, A.M.S., Abatzoglou, J., Newingham, B.A., Hall, T.E., Morgan, P., Strand, E.K., Paveglio, T.B., Anderson, J.W., and Sparks, A.M. 2014. Defining extreme wildland fires using geospatial and ancillary metrics. International Journal of Wildland Fire 23(3):322-337. http://dx.doi.org/10.1071/WF13065.
- Spreadsheet data of Burn Severity, Fire Size, Duration, and Intersection with WUI
- WUI Data (redirected to the University of Wisconsin-Madison's SILVIS Lab for data download)
- GIS Shapefile of the fire polygons and attribute data used for metrics analysis
- MTBS Burn Severity Data (ArcGIS GRID format; you will need the shapefile of polygons to identify GRIDs by fire ID)
- Readme.txt File
- 1984 Grid Files
- 1985 Grid Files
- 1986 Grid Files
- 1987 Grid Files
- 1988 Grid Files
- 1989 Grid Files
- 1990 Grid Files
- 1991 Grid Files
- 1992 Grid Files
- 1993 Grid Files
- 1994 Grid Files
- 1995 Grid Files
- 1996 Grid Files
- 1997 Grid Files
- 1998 Grid Files
- 1999 Grid Files
- 2000 Grid Files
- 2001 Grid Files
- 2002 Grid Files
- 2003 Grid Files
- 2004 Grid Files
- 2005 Grid Files
- 2006 Grid Files
- 2007 Grid Files
Birch, Donovan S, Penelope Morgan, Crystal A Kolden, Andrew T Hudak, and Alistair M S Smith. In press. Is proportion burned severely related to daily area burned? Environmental Research Letters.
- This data will be made available as soon as the paper is published. Please check back soon!
Birch, Donovan S., Penelope Morgan, Crystal A. Kolden, John T. Abatzoglou, Gregory K. Dillon, Andrew T. Hudak, and Alistair M.S. Smith. In preparation. Daily weather and other factors influencing burn severity in central Idaho and western Montana, 2005-2007 and 2011. To be submitted in June 2014 to Ecosphere.
- This data will be made available as soon as the paper is published. Please check back soon!
Wells, Ashley, Penelope Morgan, Andrew T. Hudak, and Scott Baggett. In progress. Multidecadal trends in burn severity and patch size in the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness Area, 1900-2007. To be submitted in June 2014 to Forest Ecology and Management.
- This data will be made available as soon as the paper is published. Please check back soon!
Bowman-Prideaus, C. and Newingham, B. In progress. Post-Fire Rehabilitation Influences Shrubland Fire Return Intervals. To be submitted in Summer 2014 to Restoration Ecology.
- This data will be made available as soon as the paper is published. Please check back soon!
Questions? Please contact Karen Lannom.