Post-fire Environment & Management
Event webpage
When: May 12-13, 2025
Where: Kittitas County Armory in Ellensburg, WA
Who: People working on post-fire recovery in WA, we aim to improve how watersheds, working lands, communities, infrastructure, and people recover from wildfire. This includes recovery readiness planning, actions taken during the fire, and in the months to years following. We’re all in this together.
Purpose: Learn from each other to improve recovery coordination, share best practices, and network with other professionals. This year we will spend time working to develop locally led BAER teams, learn about county-led recovery readiness guides, post-fire in CWPPs, a policy update, science, and more!f
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Our research found that persistent administrative and coordination challenges exist within and among federal agencies in the post-fire response and recovery space. Challenges included cross- jurisdictional coordination of key emergency response programs, program rules that affect post-fire project timing and effectiveness, the absence of a formal federal post-fire response strategy, and program funding issues. These factors revealed and exacerbated scale mismatches between existing agency capacities and the post-fire landscapes that result from unprecedentedly longer, larger, and more severe wildfires occurring in the western USA. Non-federal and nongovernmental organizations were instrumental in overcoming these challenges through coordinating response and recovery efforts across both federal and private lands. To improve the federal post-fire response capacity, study participants stressed the importance of broader cross-jurisdictional use of federal resources, longer timeframes for recovery activities, and reforming the federal funding process.
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Climate change is altering fire regimes and post-fire conditions, contributing to relatively rapid transformation of landscapes across the western US. Studies are increasingly documenting post-fire vegetation transitions, particularly from forest to nonforest conditions or from sagebrush to invasive annual grasses. The prevalence of climate-driven, post-fire vegetation transitions is likely to increase in the future with major impacts on social–ecological systems. However, research and management communities have only recently focused attention on this emerging climate risk, and many knowledge gaps remain. We identify three key needs for advancing the management of post-fire vegetation transitions, including centering Indigenous communities in collaborative management of fire-prone ecosystems, developing decision-relevant science to inform pre- and post-fire management, and supporting adaptive management through improved monitoring and information-sharing across geographic and organizational boundaries. We highlight promising examples that are helping to transform the perception and management of post-fire vegetation transitions.
View guidebook.
It’s difficult to put into words the profoundly life – changing experience of surviving a wildfire. After the flames are out, the road to recovery is about more than filing claims, calls with agencies, clean-up, and what will feel like a never-ending to-do list. It’s about the emotional healing of accepting what was lost, forgiving yourself for what you wish you would have done, and remember to have faith again in the future ahead. The smiles will eventually outweigh the tears— you’ll emerge stronger and be amazed by your resilience. No two recovery journeys are the same, and each present unique circumstances. Colorado State University Extension has gathered a variety of resources based on insights from subject matter experts and survivors to provide guidance on the road to recovery. We hope you find this toolkit useful as you embark on the journey ahead.
View factsheet.
In recent years, biochar has become a way to dispose of woody debris from forest activities. A new General Technical Report (GTR) has been published by the Rocky Mountain Research Station covering the eight types of biochar production available to land managers. This product will help increase the use of biochar and provide resources to inform those who are interested in it.
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Climate change is altering fire regimes and post-fire conditions, contributing to relatively rapid transformation of landscapes across the western US. Studies are increasingly documenting post-fire vegetation transitions, particularly from forest to non-forest conditions or from sagebrush to invasive annual grasses. The prevalence of climate-driven, post-fire vegetation transitions is likely to increase in the future with major impacts on social–ecological systems. However, research and management communities have only recently focused attention on this emerging climate risk, and many knowledge gaps remain. We identify three key needs for advancing the management of post-fire vegetation transitions, including centering Indigenous communities in collaborative management of fire-prone ecosystems, developing decision-relevant science to inform pre-and post-fire management, and supporting adaptive management through improved monitoring and information-sharing across geographic and organizational boundaries. We highlight promising examples that are helping to transform the perception and management of post-fire vegetation transitions.
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Severe fire limited N uptake by plants. Dry conditions after fire limited both plant and microbial N uptake. Implications. When fire is severe or when soils are relatively dry after fire, recovering plants and microbes are less likely to take up post-fire N and therefore, N in these sites is more susceptible to export.
Webinar recording.
Wildfires reshape recreation access and experiences over the short and long term. A researcher shares emerging science that is revealing how people return to and perceive wildfire-affected landscapes, and a manager shares how they navigate decisions about supporting recreation in these contexts.
Webinar recording.
We reengineer and rebuild after wildfire through a range of treatments, trying to match our built infrastructure to new, amplified patterns of runoff. A national wildfire practitioner speaks to how leaders and policy makers are increasingly recognizing the need to manage the built environment to accommodate these changes, and an environmental engineer shares a powerful story of transformation in the face of repeated wildfire events.
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Forest recovery was generally associated with cooler, mesic sites in proximity to forested refugia; shifts toward scrub and grassland types were most common in warmer, dryer locations distant from forested refugia. Under future climate scenarios, models project decreases in postfire forest recovery and increases in nonforest vegetation. However, forest to nonforest conversion was partially offset under a scenario of reduced burn severity and increased retention of forested refugia, highlighting important management opportunities. Burning trends in the southwestern United States suggest that postfire vegetation will occupy a growing landscape fraction, compelling renewed management focus on these areas and paradigm shifts that accommodate ecological change. I illustrate how management decisions around resisting, accepting, or directing change could be informed by an understanding of processes and patterns of postfire community variation and likely future trajectories.