The authors characterized the spatial distribution and size of unburned patches with the Rim fire and examined the relationships between environmental variables and unburned patches to predict the occurrence of small refugia.

Using two mechanistic ecosystem-fire models, Fire BGCv2 in the Jemez Mountains and LANDIS-II in the Kaibab, the authors projected contemporary climate and two future emissions scenarios (“warm-dry” and “hot-arid”) to the year 2100 to predict changes to forests and fire regimes in a ponderosa pine and a mixed-conifer ecosystem. They also modeled four management strategies (suppression-only, current treatment intensity, and three and six times current treatment intensity) to see if management may be able to counteract the effects of climate change on forest composition and structure.

The authors evaluated both climate and biophysical factors that influence the occurrence of low severity fire in the Southwest. Low severity fire is an important component of many high frequency, fire-adapted ecosystems in the southwest, so understanding those conditions which promote low severity fire is highly relevant to land managers.

The authors looked at large patches of high severity, stand-replacing fire in ponderosa pine ecosystems along a gradient of topography and climate as a stand-in for climate variability to understand the likelihood of regeneration due to topography, climate, drought, and distance to seed source. They selected fires that burned between 1996 and 2006 as this period of time was particularly dry across the Southwest.

The authors examined the ability of trait-based ecological restoration to enhance forest ecosystem resilience under projected climate change and increased fire frequency.

The authors studied the spatial regeneration patterns of ponderosa pine within large patches of high severity fire, specifically regeneration distribution and height from distance to unburned edge.

The authors quantified the contribution of past anthropogenic climate change to increases in area burned based on observed increases in fuel aridity metrics from 1979 to 2015, including temperature and vapor pressure deficit.

The authors sampled burned and unburned mixed conifer forest stands in the midst of a drought (2014) to determine if prescribed fire can confer resistance to drought and reduce tree mortality in low elevation forests at three national parks in southern California.

The authors examined synchrony of stand age and structure between geographically separated sites, or sky islands, to determine the influence of moisture and/or drought variability versus fire frequency on historic stand development.

The authors reconstructed the historical stand structure and fire regimes along a gradient of ponderosa pine to wet mixed-conifer and aspen stands within the habitat of the endangered Jemez Mountains salamander. They further related the variability of climate to the historic fire regime.