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/ Publications, Research, Wildfires
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SEFS and U.S. Forest Service researchers develop wildfire modeling tool for the Pacific Northwest and beyond

SEFS research scientist Susan Prichard, alongside colleagues from the U.S. Forest Service’s Pacific Northwest Research Station — Paul Hessburg, Nicholas Povak and Brion Salter — and consulting fire ecologist Robert Gray, have developed a tool for modeling wildfires that could help managers and policymakers better understand long-term consequences of different fire management practices and policies. 

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/ Publications, Research, Wildfires
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As wildfire activity increases in forests, SEFS-led research helps predict wildfire severity based on fire size

When wildfires cross a landscape, the severity of the burn isn’t uniform over the area impacted. Areas where most or all trees are killed by fire are considered “high severity burns.” The shape and size of high severity burned patches within fires play an important role in forest resilience and fire regimes, and have been difficult to predict. 

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/ General, Publications, Wildlife
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SEFS-led research points to wildlife cameras as a potential source for improving snow cover maps

New research led by SEFS Ph.D. Candidate Catherine (Katie) Breen highlights remote cameras deployed to monitor wildlife as an untapped source of snow cover observations. Published in the journal Remote Sensing of Environment last week, Breen and her advisor, Associate Professor Laura Prugh, worked with colleagues at the Norwegian Institute for Nature Research and NASA on a method combining international datasets to validate and improve satellite observations of snow cover using imagery from wildlife camera networks. 

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/ Publications, Research, Wildlife
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SEFS researcher contributes to recent paper in Science on dwindling reef shark populations

SEFS Professor Aaron Wirsing is a co-author on a new study published this week in Science, indicating that overfishing is driving reef sharks toward extinction in coral reefs globally.
The researchers pinpointed overfishing as the main driver of the species’ decline based on 22,000 hours of footage from baited underwater video stations across 391 reefs in 67 nations and territories. 

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