Two years of Landscapes in Motion: What have we learned?

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Two years of Landscapes in Motion: What have we learned?

Two years and countless hours of field, lab, and computer study by three diverse research teams have added up to new insights on the fire history of Alberta’s Southern Rockies. One of the key findings of the Landscapes in Motion research program to-date is that fire regimes in the Southern Rockies are complex, including low-severity burns and historical influences of fire suppression and Indigenous cultural burning. In this post, project coordinator Dr. David Andison and fire regime team lead Dr. Lori Daniels share what the implications of these findings might be, what questions remain to be answered, and where our work is going next.

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Unforeseen Resilience to Frequent Fires in Lodgepole Pine Forests of Alberta’s Foothills

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Unforeseen Resilience to Frequent Fires in Lodgepole Pine Forests of Alberta’s Foothills

One of the main goals of the Landscapes in Motion Fire Regime team is to reconstruct forest fire dynamics of Alberta’s Southern Rockies using evidence from tree ring samples. After two years of field sampling, lab work, and analyzing and interpreting the data, Fire Regime researcher Dr. Cameron Naficy has started to see the fruits of his labour. He and his team have learned that the lodgepole pine forests of Alberta’s Southern Rockies were more resilient to frequent burning and more structurally complex than previously thought. In this post, we share more about Dr. Naficy’s findings and what the implications might be for managing Alberta’s forests.

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Ignition Point: The Underappreciated Influence of Indigenous Burns

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Ignition Point: The Underappreciated Influence of Indigenous Burns

In both the present and the past, it is clear that humans have had a strong effect on why, where, and how forests burn. Recently, LIM researcher Dr. Cameron Naficy found some clues in the Southwestern Foothills showing that Indigenous cultural burning was likely a stronger influence on this landscape than previously documented in the academic literature. In this post, we share some context for the different ignition sources of Alberta wildfires and present a sneak peek into some of Dr. Naficy’s early findings.

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