Post-fire Vegetation Transitions in Burned and Reburned Forests in the Western Cascades

Climatic warming has contributed to recent increases in severe wildfires across the Pacific Northwest (PNW). Following severe wildfire, a burned forest has an increased likelihood burning again within several decades, which can greatly alter vegetation recovery. These changes are of increasing concern to forest managers, conservationists, researchers, the public, and culture bearers. However, more information is needed to gauge how PNW forests respond to severe wildfire reburns under ongoing climate change.



In this project, researchers and natural resource managers will jointly develop new applied science to anticipate and gauge the resilience of forests in the western Cascades of the PNW to climate change impacts. The project will combine paleo-studies, contemporary field plots, and simulation modeling to link past and present forest conditions with likely future climate and wildfire conditions. Coordinated studies of vegetation and soil change in response to wildfire at sites across the PNW will also provide durable information for understanding and predicting future change.



This research will be developed with multiple practitioners and management partners in the study areas to build spatial metrics that are useful to them to implement in the field. Other project activities include training early career scientists and undergraduate interns as well as creating outreach products for scientific and public audiences. Ultimately, this effort will translate cutting-edge forest and fire ecology, soil science, landscape ecology and paleoecology into pragmatic metrics and management protocols to help improve forest resistance and resilience to climate change.