One potential consequence of mixed severity fire regimes is that some trees may survive lower intensity fires. This phenomenon is called “partial mortality”, and it can have a variety of consequences for what the landscape looks like and becomes after a fire. When trees survive, they may offer refuge for wildlife, help speed up revegetation by producing seeds, and/or help to maintain the presence of other types of vegetation like lichens. In this blog post, we discuss how the Landscapes in Motion modeling team is studying partial mortality in the Southern Foothills of Alberta using simulation models, and why this research is important for understanding the fire history of this region.