Climate Impacts Group Brown Bag

When: January 27th

Time: Noon-1:00

Location: Wallace Hall, Program on the Environment Commons

Title:  Changing fire regimes in eastern Washington: recent large wildfire events and implications for dry forest management

Presenter: Susan Prichard, Research Scientist at School of Environmental and Forest Sciences

Abstract: Over the past two decades, regional fire years characterized by hot, dry summers and large wildfire events have become increasingly common in the inland Pacific Northwest. A legacy of past management has resulted in increased forest cover and changes in stand structure and composition that have made dry forest ecosystems particularly susceptible to large, high-severity wildfires. In this seminar, Susan will provide an overview of the changing fire regimes in semi-arid forests of the inland Pacific Northwest, the record-setting wildfire events of 2014 and 2015, and recent research that can help inform dry forest restoration strategies to increase resiliency of forest landscapes to future wildfire events and a warming climate.