Kyra Clark-Wolf – The Conversation

Thinking through scenarios allows land managers to prepare for many potential outcomes. Benjamin Slyngstad via USGS

May 27, 2025

Managing forests and other ecosystems under rising threats requires thinking across wide‑ranging scenarios

Kyra Clark-Wolf, University of Colorado Boulder; Brian W. Miller, U.S. Geological Survey, and Imtiaz Rangwala, University of Colorado Boulder

Park and forest managers can’t rely on the past any longer to understand future risks. Fires, pests and climate change are changing the game.

Rocky Mountain fires leave telltale ash layers in nearby lakes like this one. Philip Higuera

October 17, 2023

What 2,500 years of wildfire evidence and the extreme fire seasons of 1910 and 2020 tell us about the future of fire in the West

Kyra Clark-Wolf, University of Colorado Boulder and Philip Higuera, University of Montana

As the climate warms, devastating fires are increasingly likely. The 2020 fires pushed the Southern Rockies beyond the historical average. Is there hope for the Northern Rockies?

Colorado’s East Troublesome Fire jumped the Continental Divide on Oct. 22, 2020, and eventually became Colorado’s second-largest fire on record. Lauren Dauphin/NASA Earth Observatory

June 14, 2021

Rocky Mountain forests burning more now than any time in the past 2,000 years

Philip Higuera, University of Montana; Bryan Shuman, University of Wyoming, and Kyra Clark-Wolf, University of Montana

Scientists studied charcoal layers in the sediment of lake beds across the Rockies to track fires over time. They found increasing fire activity as the climate warmed.

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