WildFIRE PIRE Research in the Western United States
The Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem and the Colorado Rockies enhance the international component of WildFIRE PIRE. These regions extend the gradients of climate and land-use change, span a range of fire regimes, and utilize extensive ongoing research on climate-fire-human linkages.
Why the Western U.S.?
The western United States provides a critical contrast to the Southern Hemisphere study regions. Fire has been a dominant ecological process here for thousands of years, yet the region has experienced some of the most rapid climate and land-use changes on the planet. By studying this area alongside Australia, New Zealand, and Patagonia, the project gains a truly global perspective on wildfire dynamics.
Research Focus Areas
In the western U.S. regions, we will examine:
- Historical range of variability in fire regimes over the last 5,000+ years, filling in key information gaps.
- Charcoal and pollen-based fire and vegetation reconstructions in 3–4 new watersheds in the subalpine zone of northern Colorado.
- Integration with ongoing tree-ring research to create high-resolution fire histories.
- Interactions between climate variability, vegetation change, and human activity across multiple timescales.
- Future projections of wildfire behavior under changing climate scenarios.
Study Sites
- Greater Yellowstone Ecosystem (Wyoming/Montana/Idaho)
- Colorado Rockies (northern Colorado subalpine watersheds)
- Additional complementary sites across the western U.S. mountain ranges
Broader Context
This research complements parallel studies in:
View the full Science Plan
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Related Categories
All Research pages | All Project pages | All Wildfire studies
Tags
NSF | PIRE | Western US | Fire History | Paleoecology | Soil Erosion Control | Climate Change
This page is faithfully restored from the 2013–2015 historical archives of wildfirepire.org. Content originates from the NSF-funded WildFIRE PIRE Science Plan and remains in the public domain.