A great illustration from NM today of how recent wildfire burn scars can contain new fires. This is why you want a mosaic of burn scars (prescribed and wildfire) on the landscape. So any new fire gets boxed in by the old ones.
Jonathan Coop
@coopecology.bsky.social
I study forests and fire 🔥. Thus, climate too. Professor at Western Colorado University.
Nice article from CBC featuring our recent research findings relating snowpack to fire severity. More important than how much area burns, is how it burns. 🔥🧪🌎 @grumpyunclesean.bsky.social www.cbc.ca/news/science...
Heat dome and snow melt could prime western U.S. for intense fire season | CBC Climate Change News
Mountains that normally see their peak snowpack in March are brown this year, thanks to a spring heat dome that baked western U.S. for much of the second half of the month. That's raising alarm bells ...
cbc.ca
NEW EPISODE of #FireEcology Chats! 🔥Alyssa Worsham and Jonathan Coop discuss how the right kind of fire can shrink the gap between existing and ideal conditions in U.S. wilderness areas #SNFECO Listen here: https://fireecology.org/feco-podcast/ep82
Some nice media exposure on our new paper published in @globalchangebio.bsky.social pertaining to expanding area burned by high severity wildfire. 🌍🔥 Thank you, @murphywoodhouse.bsky.social, for raising awareness about this important paper. Tagging bsky co-author @coopecology.bsky.social.
Murphy Woodhouse@murphywoodhouse.bsky.social · 9mo agoTook me forever, but finally got my spot on @grumpyunclesean.bsky.social's latest paper up. Worth a read if you care about fire. www.boisestatepublicradio.org/environment/...
Postfire landscapes of the 2025 Deer Creek fire, Colorado-Utah border, USA.
I wrote an op-ed on the world-class STEM research ecosystem in the United States, and how this ecosystem is now under attack on multiple fronts by the current administration: newsletter.ofthebrave.org/p/im-an-awar...
I’m an award-winning mathematician. Trump just cut my funding.
The “Mozart of Math” tried to stay out of politics. Then it came for his research.
newsletter.ofthebrave.org
Though this is not a tree-ring fire scar, for #firescarfriday here is an interesting pic of landscape burn severity patterns from the 2025 Rabbit Creek Fire (DA-007) in the Yukon Territory.
Our new research highlights the extent that aspen stands may act as a firebreak, slowing or stopping fire. Applications for land management and implications for fire-driven conifer-to-aspen forest conversion. Thanks @grumpyunclesean.bsky.social for the summary below. doi.org/10.1002/eap....
GrumpyUncleSean🔥@grumpyunclesean.bsky.social · last yr.1/4 Our research team just published a new paper: "Aspen impedes wildland fire spread in southwestern United States landscapes". Aspen forests are thought to be more resistant to burning compared to conifer forests, but this has not been well studied. 🧪🔥
This would be the largest public lands sell-off in modern U.S. history and it's happening with no hearings, no debate, and no public input. See what public lands would be available for sale: www.wilderness.org/articles/med...
120 million acres of public lands eligible for sale in SENR budget reconciliation package
The bill mandates disposal of over 2 million acres of BLM and National Forest lands; public lands eligible for sale in the bill encompass over 120 million acres, including local recreation areas, wild...
wilderness.org
It’s finally in writing. The detailed President’s budget clearly wants to completely eliminate USFS Research
Why do fire scars form more on the leeward or uphill sides of trees? For #firescarfriday here's a little time lapse video showing the increased residence time of flame, and thus increased heating and potential cambial injury, in the eddy of air in the lee of this long leaf pine. Florida, USA, 2025.
End Product Of The Mo Salah Selfie 🤳😍
mountainjournal.org/white-house-...
Draft National Wildfire Plan Under White House Consideration Returns Firefighting ‘to the 1930s,’ Experts Say
On the cusp of wildfire season, a new proposal recommends consolidating all federal firefighting resources, calls for immediate fire suppression.
mountainjournal.org
Flaming fire scars at the base of a longleaf pine (Pinus palustris) in the Red Hills of Florida USA. 04/02/25. Interesting how intensely these can burn once they get going. #firescarfriday
"Trump’s economic plans are incoherent and incomprehensible at least partially by design. The goal, by this longtime scam artist, is to bamboozle the American people and take their money."
MAGA's Big Lie budget
Trump’s economic agenda is about fooling the American people.
publicnotice.co
TODAY IS THE DAY! 🧪☀️⬇️ Join us at the Lincoln Memorial or your local site to Stand Up for Science!
Wherever you are today, join us as we STAND UP FOR SCIENCE! For CO folks - events in Denver (1-4), as well as at noon in Boulder, Fort Collins, and Golden. Find your location info here: standupforscience2025.org/local-event-... If you can’t make an event, don’t fret—stand up loud at noon!
Stand Up for Science!@standupforscience.net · last yr.TODAY IS THE DAY! 🧪☀️⬇️ Join us at the Lincoln Memorial or your local site to Stand Up for Science!
Faster burning fires not only burn disproportionately large areas, but they also burn more severely. Extreme fire spread events (just the top 3%) accounted for a third of the total area burned, but half of the total area burned at high severity--setting the stage for long-term forest loss. 🧪🌎🔥
GrumpyUncleSean🔥@grumpyunclesean.bsky.social · last yr.1/n Our team just published a new paper in Global Change Biology 🧪🔥 The title succinctly describes the main take home message, but here's the deal: We produced gridded, fine-scale (resolution = 30m) daily fire progression maps for 623 wildfires in the SW US using satellite fire data. read on ...
To sum it up, the president ordered water released for fires in LA with water that doesn’t reach LA, at volumes that could cause communities to flood, and in the wrong season for irrigating crops, which will then mean less water for irrigating crops in the summer when it’s actually needed.
Shel Winkley@shelwinkleywx.bsky.social · 2y ago"This is the wrong time of year to be releasing water from reservoirs...This is going to hurt farmers," Vink said. “This takes water out of their summer irrigation portfolio.” www.latimes.com/environment/...
Turns out the 2010 America COMPETES Act contains language I recognize because I've cribbed it from NSF's Grant Proposal Guide for every proposal I've sent to NSF www.congress.gov/111/plaws/pu... It's encoded in 42 USC 1826p-14 uscode.house.gov/view.xhtml?r... R: the 2010 Act, L: the GPG
Jeremy Yoder says no war@jbyoder.org · 2y agoI genuinely did not know this! And if NSF's mandate to diversify the scientific workforce comes from Congress, it is fully unconstitutional to overturn that mandate by executive order without an act of Congress
Who has good examples of their university leaders providing strong messaging and support for students, staff, and faculty at this time? I'd love this thread to become a space where we can provide models of how to not be a coward.
In my ongoing effort to better understand our terrible relationship with fire, and what a better one might look like, the Karuk have figured prominently. Here's my report from N. California on the inspiring things happening on their ancestral territory. www.boisestatepublicradio.org/environment/...
In northern California, the Karuk Tribe is burning its way back to a centuries-old relationship with fire
The Karuk of Northern California are one of many Native peoples with a long tradition of burning their ancestral lands. These practices are key inspiration for an annual prescribed fire training that’...
boisestatepublicradio.org
„The real question isn’t whether wildfires are caused by climate change, poor forestry or reckless development; it’s how climate change interacts with other factors. No disaster mitigation technique will succeed if we keep burning fossil fuels at our current rate.“ www.latimes.com/opinion/stor...
Opinion: Are wildfires caused by climate change or something else? The question is flawed
Politicians have an agenda when they bring up forestry management or a Jewish space laser. They're trying to change the subject from fossil-fuel-driven climate change.
latimes.com
Postdoc opportunity w/Solomon Dobrowski and me! U Montana, in partnership with the NC Climate Adaptation Science Center, is hiring a talented scientist with an interest in climate connectivity and species range shifts among protected areas. $70k/year. #SpeciesOnTheMove #RangeShifts
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New UCLA rapid attribution study: “Climate change may be linked to roughly a quarter of the extreme fuel moisture deficit when the fires began. The fires would still have been extreme without climate change, but probably somewhat smaller and less intense.” sustainablela.ucla.edu/2025lawildfi...
Climate Change A Factor In Unprecedented LA Fires
sustainablela.ucla.edu
Incredibly relevant and timely research on climate whiplash, the consequences of which are unfolding in real time in the #losangeleswildfires 🔥🌎🧪
Nature Reviews Earth & Environment@natrevearthenviron.nature.com · 2y ago"Hydroclimate volatility on a warming Earth" by @weatherwest.bsky.social, @climate-guy.bsky.social, @manuelaibrunner.bsky.social, @climatechirper.bsky.social et al. nature.com/articles/s43... Global-averaged subseasonal & interannual whiplash have increased 31–66% & 8–31% since the mid-20thC
The ingredients for these infernos in the Los Angeles area — near-hurricane strength winds and mid-winter drought — foretell an emerging era of compound events that overwhelm our ability to respond. My first piece for @theguardian.com: www.theguardian.com/world/2025/j...
The Los Angeles wildfires are climate disasters compounded
Conditions for a January firestorm in Los Angeles like this have not existed before now, writes a meteorologist and climate journalist
theguardian.com
from me: the lies spreading across social media about the horrifying L.A. fires (which are quite similar to the conspiracies that emerged in the wake of Hurricane Helene) reveal one grim truth about our future—this is just how every coming climate disaster will play out in our info environment
The California Wildfires Just Revealed This Very Grim Truth
When the smoke clears, the lies remain.
slate.com