New Mexico Landscapes Field Station: Fire Research
Below are ongoing or completed research projects related to fire at the New Mexico Landscapes Field Station.
Fire history and ecology
Principal Investigator – Ellis Margolis
Wildfire is not a new phenomenon; it has been influencing landscapes and the lives of plants, animals and people for centuries to millennia. Fire in wildlands can increase the resilience of fire-adapted ecosystems, improve wildlife habitat, and reduce future wildfire risk. However, increases in wildfire size, frequency, severity, and duration are changing the landscape of the United States, killing large tracts of forest, affecting air quality and water supplies, as well as threatening lives and property. These changes in fire are highly influenced by human land use and drought. We combined tree-ring fire scars with modern fire data and other paleo records (for example, lake cores) as part of a place-based science approach to establish a historical record of fire to better understand patterns and drivers of change that inform present-day fire management practices.
Next-generation fuel and fire spread models to inform prescribed fire
Principal Investigators – Ellis Margolis, Kevin Heirs (Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program, SERDP), Rod Linn (Los Alamos National Laboratory, LANL)
Drought will continue to drive fire-catalyzed ecological transformations, such as the conversion of forests to non-forest landscapes, creating a moving target for resource managers. Increased understanding of fire behavior across a range of drought scenarios in different ecological settings is key for drought-informed management. We are combining lidar (light detection and ranging) and local field data to create three-dimensional, fine-scale representations of vegetation (fuels) to drive advanced models. Modeling will occur in three important ecological contexts within the Resist-Accept-Direct (RAD) framework: partially transformed forests at the edge of refugia (Resist), transformed forests that are now shrubs (Accept), and forests that are transition between dry and wet mixed conifer ecosystems (Direct). Fire behavior projections will be integrated into fire and vegetation management plans and actions of our key National Park Service (NPS) and U.S. Forest Service (USFS) management partners in the upper Rio Grande Basin, New Mexico.
Post-fire Recovery Patterns in Southwestern Forests
Jens T Stevens (former USGS), Ellis Margolis, and Craig Allen (University of New Mexico emeritus).
High-severity crown (treetop to treetop) fires in southwestern dry-conifer forests — resulting from fire suppression, fuel buildups, and drought — are creating large, treeless areas that are historically unprecedented in size and unlikely to recover to their pre-fire state. These recent stand-replacing fires have reset extensive portions of southwest forest landscapes, fostering post-fire successional vegetation that can alter ecological recovery trajectories away from pre-fire forest types toward persistent non-forested ecosystems (shrublands and grasslands) at the scales of mountain ranges, the Southwest, and western North America. Our team studies areas that burned during recent persistent regional droughts (since 1996) that are recovering under hotter drought conditions that simulate projected future drought trends. This research improves our understanding of Southwest landscape changes in response to land use and drought, contributing to a framework for informed post-fire land management decisions regarding adaptation or mitigation strategies to sustain forests under projected “hotter drought” conditions.
Post-fire Recovery Patterns in Southwestern Forests
Below are ongoing or completed research projects related to fire at the New Mexico Landscapes Field Station.
Fire history and ecology
Principal Investigator – Ellis Margolis
Wildfire is not a new phenomenon; it has been influencing landscapes and the lives of plants, animals and people for centuries to millennia. Fire in wildlands can increase the resilience of fire-adapted ecosystems, improve wildlife habitat, and reduce future wildfire risk. However, increases in wildfire size, frequency, severity, and duration are changing the landscape of the United States, killing large tracts of forest, affecting air quality and water supplies, as well as threatening lives and property. These changes in fire are highly influenced by human land use and drought. We combined tree-ring fire scars with modern fire data and other paleo records (for example, lake cores) as part of a place-based science approach to establish a historical record of fire to better understand patterns and drivers of change that inform present-day fire management practices.
Next-generation fuel and fire spread models to inform prescribed fire
Principal Investigators – Ellis Margolis, Kevin Heirs (Strategic Environmental Research and Development Program, SERDP), Rod Linn (Los Alamos National Laboratory, LANL)
Drought will continue to drive fire-catalyzed ecological transformations, such as the conversion of forests to non-forest landscapes, creating a moving target for resource managers. Increased understanding of fire behavior across a range of drought scenarios in different ecological settings is key for drought-informed management. We are combining lidar (light detection and ranging) and local field data to create three-dimensional, fine-scale representations of vegetation (fuels) to drive advanced models. Modeling will occur in three important ecological contexts within the Resist-Accept-Direct (RAD) framework: partially transformed forests at the edge of refugia (Resist), transformed forests that are now shrubs (Accept), and forests that are transition between dry and wet mixed conifer ecosystems (Direct). Fire behavior projections will be integrated into fire and vegetation management plans and actions of our key National Park Service (NPS) and U.S. Forest Service (USFS) management partners in the upper Rio Grande Basin, New Mexico.
Post-fire Recovery Patterns in Southwestern Forests
Jens T Stevens (former USGS), Ellis Margolis, and Craig Allen (University of New Mexico emeritus).
High-severity crown (treetop to treetop) fires in southwestern dry-conifer forests — resulting from fire suppression, fuel buildups, and drought — are creating large, treeless areas that are historically unprecedented in size and unlikely to recover to their pre-fire state. These recent stand-replacing fires have reset extensive portions of southwest forest landscapes, fostering post-fire successional vegetation that can alter ecological recovery trajectories away from pre-fire forest types toward persistent non-forested ecosystems (shrublands and grasslands) at the scales of mountain ranges, the Southwest, and western North America. Our team studies areas that burned during recent persistent regional droughts (since 1996) that are recovering under hotter drought conditions that simulate projected future drought trends. This research improves our understanding of Southwest landscape changes in response to land use and drought, contributing to a framework for informed post-fire land management decisions regarding adaptation or mitigation strategies to sustain forests under projected “hotter drought” conditions.