Wildfire and Forest Resilience Research

Wildfire and forest resilience research examines how vegetation, drought, tree mortality, and fuel moisture shape fire potential and ecosystem health.

Studies in western forests have linked drier fuels and dead biomass to greater wildfire heat potential, while field programs in Oregon use seasonal vegetation and soil-moisture measurements to improve risk assessment. Long-term experiments such as California’s Coastal Adaptive Management Experiment compare forest treatments, historic fire-regime analogues, and diversity-focused approaches to understand effects on redwood forest structure, function, carbon, and resilience.