Forests west of the Cascade Crest in Washington and Oregon (‘western Cascadia’) are among the most productive in the world, providing important cultural, ecological and economic services. These forests are adapted to large and severe wildfires that occur infrequently, at intervals between one to several centuries. In recent years, climate-driven increases in fire activity have been raising concerns about wildfire risk to forests and communities in western Cascadia and creating questions about possible management responses. Future projections for western Cascadia forests remain uncertain due to limited fire events in the last hundred years and because forest dynamics play out over decades to centuries. However, since 2017, more than a million acres have burned across the region, presenting an opportunity to study forest recovery following fire and plan management strategies for guiding forest management into the future.

In this project, Jenna will assess post-fire forest conditions and reburn risk across western Cascadia. Using field data from recently burned areas, combined with a powerful landscape simulation model (iLand), this research will explore how tree seedling survival and growth, understory vegetation and fuels differ across forest stands of varying ages and burn severities in the decades following a wildfire. Jenna will host an iLand training workshop and deliver these projections as an infographic and webinar in partnership with the Washington Department of Natural Resources, Tulalip Tribes and U.S. Forest Service to help identify potential tradeoffs and opportunities for managing western Cascadia forests to achieve climate adaptation and resource management goals. By strengthening simulation-modeling infrastructure for the Northwest, this work will contribute to a foundation upon which to build critical understanding of forest responses to disturbances over time and under changing climate conditions.