May 22, 2019: Do trends in climate influence the increase in high-severity wildfire in the southwestern US from 1984 to 2015?

Presenter: Stephanie Mueller, Northern Arizona University Date: May 22, 2019 12pm Mountain Daylight Time (11am AZ time) Over the last 30 years, in woodland and forested ecosystems across the southwestern US, there has been an increasing trend in fire activity. Altered land use practices and more recent changes in precipitation patterns and warmer temperatures are …

2019 Cultivating Pyrodiversity- 8th AFE International Fire Ecology & Management Congress

The Association for Fire Ecology is excited to be hosting this event in Tucson, Arizona in cooperation with the Southwest Fire Science Consortium. Presentations will feature the latest in research results, applications, case studies, and lessons learned, and special sessions will be designed to unify science and application and to create opportunities for interdisciplinary learning. …

April 26, 2018: Southwest Fire Season 2017 Overview and 2018 Outlook

Date: Thursday April 26, 2018 12pm MDT (11am AZ) Presenters: Zander Evans, Forest Stewards Guild and Rich Naden, Fire Weather Meteorologist, Southwest Coordination Center The purpose of this webinar was to review 2017 fires and look ahead toward conditions for 2018. Dr. Zander Evans presented an overview of the largest fires in the Southwest during 2017. He …

Horseshoe 2 Fire: 6 years Post-Fire

We hosted a two-day field trip to visit various locations within the perimeter of the 2011 Horseshoe 2 Fire (including Chiricahua National Monument and Coronado National Forest). Topics discussed include: wildlife impacts, rangeland impacts, watershed and hydrology effects, and historic fire regime and re-burn issues. Read the Horseshoe 2 Factsheet here. Click the StoryMap below …

April 26, 2017: Southwest Fire Season 2016 Overview and 2017 Outlook

Date: Wednesday April 26, 2017 12pm MDT (11am AZ) Presenter: Zander Evans, Forest Stewards Guild and Chuck Maxwell, Predictive Services Meteorologist, Southwest Coordination Center Please join us for a webinar to review last year’s fires and look ahead toward conditions for this year. Dr. Zander Evans will present an overview of the 12 largest fires in the …

Megan Poling research

August 24, 2016: Increasing trends in high severity fire in the southwestern USA from 1984-2013

Presenter: Megan Poling, PhD Student, Northern Arizona University In the last three decades nearly 5 million hectares have burned in all vegetation types in the Southwest and the largest fires in documented history have occurred in the past two decades. However, trends in severity, or how fires are burning have not been well documented in forest …

High Severity Fire: Response and Uncertainty

Do high severity burns lead to conversion to new forest types or a shift from forests to shrublands or grasslands? How do wildlife respond to changing habitats? And, finally, what do these changes tell us about how these ecosystems will respond to climate change? We visited the sites of the 2000 Pumpkin Fire and 2003 Aspen Fire, and talked to researchers who have been studying how forests and wildlife respond to high severity burns. View the YouTube video here.


May 18, 2016: Finding the Best Available Science on Fire Effects and Fire Regimes in Southwestern and Southern Rocky Mountains Ecosystems

Presenter: Robin Innes, Ecologist Fire Effects Information System (FEIS, www.feis-crs.org/feis/) staff will introduce new two fire regime products-Fire Regime Reports and Fire Regime Syntheses-and demonstrate FEIS’s new search functions to inform fire management planning and decision-making in the Southwest and Southern Rockies regions. Fire Regime Reports summarize information from thousands of LANDFIRE Biophysical Settings models, which …

May 18, 2016: Southwest Fire Season: 2015 Overview and 2016 Outlook- May 2016

Presenter: Zander Evans, Forest Guild and Brent Wachter, National Weather Service Please join us for a webinar to review last year’s fires and look ahead toward conditions for this year. Dr. Zander Evans will present an overview of the 12 largest fires in the Southwest during 2015. He will share summaries of forest types and burn …

March 17, 2016: Persistence and fire regimes of oak shrubfields suggest increasing dominance with climate change

Presenter: Chris Guiterman, University of Arizona PhD Candidate A number of recent studies in the Southwest region have documented abrupt transitions of conifer-dominated forests to shrubfields following high-severity fire. Little is known about the long-term ecosystem dynamics of these stands, including their successional trajectories and interactions with fire. I will present dendroecological analyses of five of …