Do bad ski seasons lead to more wildfires?

Investigating the relationships between early snow melt and wildfire outbreaks in the Northern US RockiesDonal O’Leary - M.S. Geography Candidate - WWUChris Zemp – Undergraduate Badass - WWU

Wildfire:

•Fire regimes are punctuated by large coincident outbreaks across the landscape.

•The factors controlling these outbreaks are poorly understood due to their complexity.

•Snow melt timing is hypothesized to interact with wildfire outbreaks.

Fires within the natural world are a normal and healthy part of ecosystem dynamics.

•Wildfire is related to a number variables, and snow melt timing has been identified as one of those variables.

•It is well understood that the Mountain West of the Conterminous United States has experienced an increasingly active, long, and intense fire season since the 1980s.

•Investigating correlations between snow melt timing and wildfire occurrence may be of use for wildfire forecasters and climate change modeling.

• For years like 2015 low snowpack and early melt may be early warning signs for an active fire season.

• Identifying regions, ecosystems, and timing thresholds that have relationships between snow melt timing and active fire seasons could help to protect:

• Timber Resources

• Sensitive Species

• Personal Property

Research Question:Does the US Northern Rockies experience more

wildfire following an early snow melt?

Established Methods:

•Medler et al. Fails to find significance, possibly due to the use of political borders, not natural ones.

•Westerling investigates Western North America, but limited by resolution and use of stream gaguges. (A)

•Semmens uses improved resolution, but limited to a single watershed. (B)

Medler et al. (2002)Westerling et al. (2006) and Semmens and Ramage (2012)

Established Methods:Westerling 2006

Semmens 2012

Medler et al. 2002

O’Leary et al. 2016

Scale Western

N.America

Porcupine River

Watershed, AK

Western US

Western Conterminous United

States

Snow Melt

Timing

Stream Gauge

Advanced Microwav

e Scanning Radiomet

er

NOAA Maps

NOAA Maps

Aggregate

Within Grid

By Pixel By State By EcoRegion

Resolution

1/8° (~14km

)

12.5km 89km 89km

Rutgers Snow Lab Data

Rutgers Snow Lab Data