Monday November 29, 2021
Western Farmer-Stockman —
How much and how long a severely burned Pacific Northwest mountain landscape stays blanketed in winter snow is a key factor in the return of vegetation, research by Oregon State University and the University of Nevada, Reno shows.
Published in the Journal of Geophysical Research: Biogeosciences, the findings are important because the severity and frequency of wildfires in the Northwest are increasing, the blazes carry many short- and long-term impacts, and the length of those impacts is linked with vegetation’s re-establishment and recovery.
“As wildfire activity continues to increase and intensify in the Northwest, understanding what shapes revegetation on severely burned forested landscapes is vital for guiding management decisions,” OSU College of Forestry researcher Kevin Bladon said.
Postfire revegetation in the forested mountain regions of the Pacific Northwest is a complicated puzzle, the scientists say, but snow cover is a crucial element especially in the Cascade Range in Oregon and Washington. More than 80% of wildfires in the western United States from 2000 to 2012 burned within a seasonal snow zone, a time period that overlaps with the years studied.