Regime Change: History of Fire Ecology in Nevada

From the Ponderosa Pine-covered mountains in the Great Basin to the arid Mojave Desert and all the sagebrush and grass in between, Nevada’s ecosystems are diverse and fire behaves differently across these regions, both historically and today. The guests on the latest episode of the Living With Fire Podcast “Regime Change: History of fire ecology in Nevada,” explain why fire is an important process in Nevada, how scientists study fire, and why understanding the history of fire can give scientists and land managers useful clues to help them manage landscapes today.

Guests:

• Alexandra Urza, research ecologist with the U.S. Forest Service
• Stanley G. Kitchen, research botanist with the U.S. Forest Service
• Matthew Brooks, supervisory research ecologist with the Western Ecological Research Center

Episode Transcript

Megan Kay (00:19):
Welcome to the living with fire Podcast, where we
share stories and resources tohelp you live more safely with
wildfire.
Hi, I'm Megan Kay, your host andoutreach coordinator for the
living the fire program. On thisepisode, we are going to do a
deep dive into fire ecology inNevada. We talked to some fire

(00:42):
ecologist who are experts indifferent ecosystems found in
Nevada and also just in thewestern United States. We wanted
to get into the science, wewanted to understand how fire
affects these differentecosystems historically and
today. So enjoy the episode.

Christina Restaino (00:59):
I'm Christina Restaino. I'm the
director of the program and onthe faculty at at UNR. I

(01:19):
specialize in wildland fire,drought, forestry impacts on on
terrestrial ecosystems in theWest. I used to work more in the
forest ecosystems but learningmore about the sagebrush
ecosystems and the range landecosystems of the West now that

(01:42):
I have my new position at usr soI've been here since August
2019. So still relatively new.
So excited to hear from youguys.

Megan Kay (01:52):
And to give you a little bit of background on me,
I, I am a I studied art, finearts, you know, like I studied
printmaking and book arts. Andso I'm a liberal liberal arts
person, but I did spend fiveyears working as wildland
firefighter for NDF, and thenalso North Lake Tahoe fire. So I

(02:14):
have a little bit of backgroundin the ecology just from what I
was taught when I was doingtreatment, fuel treatments and
everything. So I'm kind of thatI think Christina pointed out
last interview, I'm like thestraight man, you know, I'm a
person who will probably likechallenge you on terms and kind
of unpack any sort of rhetoric.
So if I slow you down orinterrupt you to explain

(02:35):
anything, don't be offended.
It's just me trying tounderstand and I you know, I've
done research and I've read yourguys's work, so I have a good
idea of what's going on.

Ali Urza (02:45):
So, I'm Ali Urza. I'm a research ecologist with the
Rocky Mountain Research Station,which is a in the research arm
of the US Forest Service. I'mbased out of Reno, Nevada, and I
consider myself a plantcommunity ecologist. I'm
especially interested in thedrivers of vegetation patterns

(03:06):
and change. And a lot of myresearch focuses in the Great
Basin, largely in Nevada, atleast for the last, oh, six or
seven years or so I've beenlargely focused in the Nevada
portion of the Great Basin. Istudy the ways that plant
communities and ecosystemsrespond to fire and climate

(03:29):
change and other drivers likeinvasive species. I guess I
don't remember exactly how youphrased the question, but kind
of how, what interests me orwhat kind of drives me in this
regard. I grew up in Nevada, Iactually grew up in Reno and I
left for a long time. And I feeljust super excited to be able to

(03:50):
be back in this area. This isdefinitely kind of the Great
Basin is like my soul region. Ithink it's a very
underappreciated, butmagnificent landscape. And it's
personally challenging to see alot of the stressors and changes
happening in real time in theGreat Basin. And I think that

(04:13):
observation of ongoing changesreally motivates my work. And I
just love having the opportunityto be able to work in the field
in particular in these greatlandscapes. So.

Megan Kay (04:29):
And that was exactly what I was asking. So we'll do,
Matt, next, introduce yourselfand talk a little bit about what
interests you about what you do,and maybe anything exciting that
you're working on right now.

Matt Brooks (04:42):
Matt Brooks, I'm a supervisory research ecologist
for the US Geological Survey,Western Ecological Research
Center in at the Yosemite FieldStation. I'm the PI there. I've
been working on fire since 89when I was the Masters student
and most of my work has been inthe hot deserts, mostly the

(05:06):
Mojave Desert. Ali mentioned theGreat Basin might be under
appreciated, I would submitMojave might be even less
appreciated, especially astandpoint of fire. And so one
of the things that's drawn me toworking on fire in the Mojave is
that because of its infrequency,even compared to the Great Basin

(05:26):
and it's there hasn't beennearly as much work done in the
in the Mojave as in the GreatBasin. And today, there's fewer
people working on fire in theMojave Desert in the Great Basin
by quite a few. And so althoughoftentimes I'm asked to talk
about fire in the Great Basin,and I do my best, I'm my

(05:47):
expertise is really in theMojave. And so in this podcast,
that's probably where most whatI can contribute the most. Now,
you might ask why, someone atthe Yosemite field station is
working in the Mojave, I doother things too. I work on
Yosemite toads and mountainyellow legged frogs among other
things. And so as an ecologistwe do we're asked to do a lot of

(06:11):
things and as a federalecologist is as you know, we all
know there's lots of differentthings that often science is
needed for and and so that'swhat got me in some of these
other topics, I bet at theassembly Field Station since
2007. And Previous to that, Iwas in Southern Nevada at the

(06:32):
Henderson field or Las VegasField Office of USGS. Probably
the niche I have to other thandesert fire Mojave Desert fire
has been interaction betweeninvasive species and fire. And
so I've done work with thingslike salt, cedar and riparian
systems and other species thannon native grasses, mustards

(06:55):
that sort of thing. And I'mstill here still doing it and
then working for us well, it wasnatural biological survey and
actually going back quite a waysI started working for the
federal government and sort ofon contract right after this
right after the Babbittadministration and NBS was

(07:17):
formed and I was I've been afull time Research Scientist
since 98.

Megan Kay (07:33):
So then we move on to Stanley Kitchen if Could you
introduce yourself and tell uswhat interests you about your
field of study

Stanley Kitchen (07:40):
Stan Kitchen I'm with the the Rocky Mountain
Research Station like Ali onlyon the other side of the Great
Basin in in my my office asrarely as I see it nowadays with
with COVID, lockouts or whateverwe want to call it is in Provo,
Utah. I'm a, as I said, aresearch botanist and so maybe a

(08:03):
little bit different angle onthings in that I'm very much
interested in the interactionof, of plant communities and
disturbance, fire being one ofthose disturbances, but grazing
or, or climate, drought or anumber of different other kinds
of disturbances can be importantas well. And, and I'm interested

(08:27):
in the whole plant community howthat adjusts to or interacts
with disturbance, but alsoindividual species, how they're
adapted for, for thosedisturbance, events, or patterns
of disturbance so that they cancontinue to persist on
landscape. I have found a realniche or interest in looking in

(08:49):
historical patterns, we can ifwe can find ways to uncover or,
or open up understanding to thepast, it can tell us a lot in
our present, or about ourpresent circumstances, without
having to wait as long periodsof time. So I like that

(09:12):
intersection between betweenhistory or natural history and
science and and, and then tryingto figure out how we can unpack
that for for, for things thatare happening in the world today
that that makes sense for us. Sothat's been been my career and I

(09:34):
work in the gray basin as wellas in other parts of Utah in the
Intermountain West, primarilyNevada and Utah. Then a little
bit of work in Idaho and otherareas as well.

Megan Kay (09:48):
Awesome, and that's why I reached out to all of you
guys is kind of to understandthe history of fire in these
very different ecosystems inNevada. Like you mentioned,
Matt, like the Mojave is verydifferent than the Great Basin.
And even within the Great Basin,there's like a huge variety. So
thank you guys for allintroducing yourselves. I'm even

(10:10):
more excited to talk to you. Idoing research on this podcast,
a term that kind of that is thatI guess it's a common term in in
ecology and fire ecology, butit's something that I noticed.
And as someone who's doesn'thave an ecology background,
helps me understand this topic.
And that term is fire regime.

(10:33):
You guys all have it appears ina lot of your guys's research.
And so I wanted to quicklyunpack that term a little bit
and talk about what is a fireregime? And what, how we use it
to understand fire behavior, andhow we use it to study the
history of fire. So I'm going tokind of you guys can raise your

(10:55):
hand Who wants to go first? ButI don't have anyone in mind who
wants to address this first. Butwho? Yeah, let's just talk about
what a fire regime is. So Stan,why don't you go first?

Stanley Kitchen (11:05):
Sure, I'd be happy to first of all, I'd like
to, to use a quote from Cecilfrost that I think really
establishes an understanding heat this quote I've used a number
of times, he says, It is nowapparent that fire once played a
role in shaping all but thewettest, the most arid, or the
most the most fire shelter plantcommunities in the United

(11:28):
States. And I would add to that,that fire has been a part of
vegetation. Almost since plantsemerged and began growing on dry
land. The coal records and otherrecords make it very clear,
especially during periods oftime, when we had high oxygen
levels, when even wet vegetationwith burn that plants have been

(11:50):
kind of adjusting in evolvingand adapting to fire as a part
of their environment for a verylong time. So that's Fire, fire
regime, we usually break downinto, we'll describe a fire
regime based not on one fire.
And one fire doesn't tell usmuch about a fire regime. But

(12:11):
but but how we describe a fireregime in terms of patterns of
fire patterns to time, patternsacross space. And, and, and some
some other factors, for example,that patterns that might be
important in a fire regime orthe frequency of fire, how often

(12:32):
might have fire returned to thesame place on landscape? Or what
season of the year that firewould occur? That's, that's also
part of the temporal or portionof a fire regime. And connected
to that is the regularity offire? Is it something that's

(12:54):
almost on a regular pattern? Isit synchronized with drought? Or
some other factor? Is there someway that that and that that's
non fire related, but it'scertainly important? The spatial
pattern of fire is alsoimportant as our fires large?
Are they small? Are theycontinuous? Are they patchy? All

(13:14):
of those are important portionof this thing we call fire
regime. And finally, there'sthings like fire intensity, how
hot does a fire burn? How longdoes it burn off? Or how severe
is a fire? how large of animpact might it have on the on
the vegetation in our landscape?

(13:35):
That would generally what werefer to as severity, and then
sometimes a portion of of fireregime is, is it a human caused
fire regime with human ignitionsare Native Americans here but
all hunter gatherer societiesacross the world through time of
use fire is a very importanttool. So human fire regimes

(13:58):
versus natural fire regimes,which except for a few places,
where you have volcanoes, itmeans lightning are are another
way of describing or getting atthis, this idea of what's the
pattern of fire through space inthrough time on a landscape. And
all of those factors, thattemporal factors, the spatial

(14:20):
factors, and the other factorsinteract. So if you have
frequent fires, more likely tobe low severity or low
intensity. And oftentimes,smaller fires, less frequent
fire is more likely to be largefires high severity, or high
intensity fire. So there's thoseinteractions always going on
within those different measures,or metrics of fire.

Megan Kay (14:45):
Yeah, is that does it did that, Matt, did you guys
want to add anything or likemaybe, maybe also, some context
is like how we use fire regimesas well.

Matt Brooks (14:55):
Since you threw a quote out there, Stan, I'll
throw another one. And it has todo with, you know, firing humans
can also be characterized asfire over space and time. And
one of the things about theMojave in particular is that
there's a wide range ofvariations in fire over space

(15:15):
and time. And Robert Humphrey in74, he had a seminal publication
on fire in the deserts of NorthAmerica. And his quote was,
because of the inescapably closecorrelations between prevalence
of fire and the amount of fueldeserts are characteristically
less affected by fire than mostecosystems. However, even though
fire frequency and severity maybe relatively low in any rating

(15:38):
scale, their effects on theecosystem may be extreme. And
the point being is is that in aplace like at the more arid end
of the spectrum with a lowerfuel and the fuel end of the
spectrum in Southern Nevada,especially at the lower
elevations, fire can be veryinfrequent. But when it does
happen, it can be a reallysignificant ecological and

(15:58):
management event. And becausethe fire regimes vary, so
dramatically, even over thespace of a couple miles as you
go up in elevation, or down inelevation. And so I would just
add that, you know, fire regimesare sort of characteristics of,
they can be characterized as avery local scales, they can be a

(16:20):
watershed, they can be a northfacing slope on a watershed that
has a different fire regime thanthey the the desert that's down
below it that the watershedspreads down to, because fire
might occur over time relativelyfrequently at those upper
elevations. But as soon as ithits to the bottom of the
watershed, there's not enoughfuel to carry it down into the

(16:42):
flats and into the basins. Andso I think that's one thing,
just to add is that it can vary,regimes can vary really locally,
over time, but then also, theycan vary over over centuries,
decades and centuries, withchanging climates. So you might
have vegetations, and move upsloping down slope, it's really

(17:04):
been dramatic in the Mojave inthat regard, over time, because
you have such a wide range ofcover from less than 5%, shrub
cover to to, you know, 40% 45%at the top of mountains in the
same geographical area. And sothat would be the main thing
that I would add to that is thatit can vary tremendously over

(17:26):
short landscape features. Butwhich makes it really difficult
to manage sometimes in thatcontext.

Ali Urza (17:33):
I think that one thing when I was thinking about the
questions that you sent us, onething that I kept thinking about
was how our ability tounderstand historic fire regime
is really complicated. And it'svery challenged in places like
Nevada or arid ecosystems,especially well, for a couple of
factors. So one, like the, theless frequent fires are on the

(17:57):
landscape, the fewer records, wehave them over long periods of
time. And when we think aboutfire regime, like Stan said,
having a single fire doesn'tgive us a lot of information
about a fire regime, we reallyneed multiple fires to
understand kind of the spatialand temporal pattern. And when
we have pretty relatively fewfires on the landscape, we just
have kind of a more limitedability to understand the longer

(18:21):
term patterns and because theoccurrence of fires are, is
really driven by temporalvariability and weather
conditions, like Matt said, orspatial variation over small
scales, the fewer records wehave, the harder it is for us to
understand kind of what thatpattern looks like. And then the
other side of it is the formthat the that fire records take

(18:46):
is a lot more challenging inecosystems that tend to
experience higher severity fireswith that our stand replacing or
ecosystem or vegetationreplacing. So the ecosystem
types that we have really goodrecords of fire for are like for
example, ponderosa pineecosystems where we tend to have

(19:07):
high frequency low severityfires that leave a record of
fire in the form of fire scarsthat we can date at an annual
resolution and reconstruct overvarious spatial scales. And in
desert ecosystems. We don't havethose high precision records of
fire. So our understanding ofhistoric fire regimes is a lot

(19:27):
more limited. And there's a lotof debate over what historic
fire regimes looked like indesert ecosystems, really driven
by that kind of lower fidelityof fire records.

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with fire dot com.

(20:32):
I'm so glad you brought that up.
Because that's one thing that Ithink part of the reason why
this is such an interestingtopic to me, and I think will be
to our viewers is under tryingto understand what, like what
role fire played in the in theland and Nevada landscape
historically, so that we can getan idea of how it's changed due
to the due to many factors. AndI like the idea, you know, I

(20:57):
like to imagine you guys aslike, detectives, you know,
trying to solve these mysteries.
And you were talking about,like, these documents, like tree
scars, or something you canpoint to and say, hey, look,
there was a fire here. Becauseyou can look at this tree ring.
What? This is not on thequestions I asked I sent you

(21:18):
guys, this is just me kind ofimproving here. Quick, like,
real quickly, can you kind ofexplain some of the ways you
guys investigate and try to useany sort of like, you speculate,
but then you try to, you know,back that up with research and
evidence, and what type ofthings are you looking at in

(21:39):
order to in your research inorder to kind of like fill in
the gaps and give people ahistory of what what role fire
played in the landscape. Andthen we can go let's just go in
the same order. So Stan, do youwant to start with that one is
fine. Yeah, go ahead.

Stanley Kitchen (21:58):
First, I'd like to start with when we're talking
about fire in Nevada, or fire inthe Great Basin. And I'll maybe
without thinking too much, usethose interchangeably. The Great
Basin and Nevada are not exactlythe same geography but but close
enough for our purposes, I hopethat we have over 100 mountain

(22:21):
ranges and each of those aresomewhat unique from from each
other there. And then they'reseparated by these dry valleys
and so my emphasis has beenworking in the mountain systems
and and Matt and Ali spent a lotof time in the valleys and so

(22:41):
I'm part of my purpose will beto make sure that the mountains
are well represented and what'sgoing on and in those 100 or so
mountain ranges 100 plusmountain ranges. There's a lot
we don't know yet but there butwe have learned a lot about the
ecosystems and the place of fireand those ecosystems. And one of
the ways we do that is throughdendrochronology which is a

(23:02):
study of tree rings. And thevery simple explanation is trees
produce a new growth ring on thejust under the bark on an annual
basis. So as the tree getsolder, it's put it's producing a
new ring and those rings cancapture information about the

(23:23):
environment as they areproduced. And so they produce a
sort of a history of the localenvironment including things
such as fire and and b boftentimes fire won't insure
that the tree without killingthe tree and that injury is
captured in and ponderosa pineis the one of the better trees

(23:44):
for recording not just a singlefire but multiple fires and
these are fires that tend toburn along the ground and the
end and maybe into the brush ora small trees but are not the
big crowny fires that usuallymake the news where all trees
are killed and you're left withkind of a moonscape. these are
these are low severity, lowintensity fires, and or ground

(24:06):
fire surface fires. So often atree when it once it's been
injured, once it can be injuredmultiple times bark will fall
off that and it will leave aninjury area that's easily
recognizable on the trunk of atree and kind of a triangular
pattern. And as we look in thatthat injured area without bark,
there will be charged from firesand and evidence within within

(24:32):
those growth rings a pattern ofgrowth rings of of those
injuries that by cutting a crosssection through that we can
examine the growth rings and seeright to the year when those
fires occurred in the past andand so it's not uncommon in some
places where fire is frequent onthe landscape. We might see

(24:55):
evidence of anywhere from from afew to 10 or 20 fires recorded
in a particular tree. And thenif we gather information from
multiple trees, say in awatershed or from on a hill
slope or across an elevationalgradient, then we can start
putting together ideas about thepattern of fire both through

(25:18):
time and space on thatlandscape. And that's been a lot
of what I've done. In some ofthe mountains of Nevada there's
there's been others to someother researchers that have
worked in the sheep mountainsand and the clover mountains and
Irish mountain in Nevada. I'veworked in the snake range and
the Shoal Creek range. Those areareas where ponderosa pine is

(25:42):
found. And so it's easier tomake this kind of a study
though, though I have, I haveobserved fire scars, and not
just ponderosa pine, but limberpine, bristlecone pine, white
for Douglas fir.engelmannspruce, even quaking Aspen, at
times can form distinguishablefire scars, so it's, it's, it's

(26:07):
just a little harder, when youdon't have that, that species
like ponderosa pine helping youout. So So then we we, we can
make these temporary these,these histories of that are
connected to a particular tree.
And again, with multiple treeson the landscape, we can put
together both patterns ofspatial patterns, as well as

(26:30):
temporal patterns of, of howfire is on the landscape. And
sometimes when the fires arehigh severity and they kill all
the plants, then then you cansample those trees and know the
year that they died in also as aas a way of getting at those
records. Or even when a foresthas opened and opened up.
Because of that kind of a highseverity fire, you get new trees

(26:50):
established afterwards. Thedates on when those trees first
started growing can also helptell you about the last event of
a fire.

Christina Restaino (27:03):
I love looking at tree rings my entire
all of my dissertation work wasa giant tree ring study. So I I
love looking at tree scars.

Megan Kay (27:13):
So I'm going to circle back and then after
because I want to ask Matt andAli something but I'm going to
circle back and ask about thechanges in fire that you've
noticed, historically. Butfirst, I want to go to Matt and
kind of ask. So we just heardabout how you study the history
of fire with Ponderosa pines andin forest where their stands of

(27:35):
trees. How do you study thehistory of fire in the Mojave
Desert?

Matt Brooks (27:39):
Yeah, so I think a good segue for what Stan
described was, was an examplefrom the ecotone between the
Mojave and the great basin. Andthat includes individual sort of
sentimental trees that thatdendrochronology has been done
on. So I'm talking about thesorts of trees Stan's talking
about where you get hundreds ofthem across the landscape. And

(28:02):
you can figure out spatialpatterns over space and time.
Individual tree much moredifficult, but it provides a
tremendous amount of informationabout the general frequency of
fire in an area. So I'm talkingabout these individual pines
that are in an area that's nowcurrently sagebrush, and pinyon,

(28:22):
and Juniper. And there's anexample from you mentioned, the
Irish mountains and his madIrish publication, where for
hundreds of years up until aboutthe mid 1800s, when the ranchers
came in, there were fires thatoccurred sometimes sometimes
less than, you know, a decadebetween fires, but pretty, you

(28:43):
know, relative regular burningin this region. And then as soon
as the ranchers came in, theburning almost ceased that
record in the tree. And theinference is, is that there was
a tremendous amount of burningby Native Americans probably for
things like perennial grassproduction, pinyon pinion

(29:03):
production seed production. Sothere was I think that in the
Mojave, there is someinferences. Well, that's actual
evidence. But there's alsoreferences from traditional
knowledge from native tribesabout especially in riparian
areas for managing mesquiteMesquite was a very valuable
crop. And you get higherproduction if you were to if you

(29:26):
wrote regularly, regularly cleararound them.

Megan Kay (29:30):
Could you tell us why mesquite was such a valuable
crop just out of curiosity,

Matt Brooks (29:35):
it's a it's a high protein, food for making meal.
kind of like the opinion seeds,but it's in the it's in the
context of riparian systems.
Also, in a landscape like theMojave where water is at a
premium and really waterdictates whether human
habitation is possible eventoday in regular burning around

(29:56):
Spring sites would increasespring flow we know that today
it's it clearly happened in thepast there's evidence that that
was done in the past alsobasketry materials things like
milkweed

Megan Kay (30:12):
so is that because you're clearing away anything
like dead vegetation and buildup like is that why well

Matt Brooks (30:17):
basically it's evapo transpiration, reducing
vegetation amount, you increasethe amount of flow to the
surface for a period of time.
And so we infer a lot from onpast fire frequencies and and
and from traditional knowledgethat's been passed down also

(30:37):
like I gave an example ofembedded trees. But other
evidence is there's there's avery rare occurrence I know of a
couple of publications that areactually publications looking at
seismic events. And basicallyit's it's, it's, you have the
strata that are laid down in adeposit over time, every once a

(31:00):
while you get a carbon lens froma fire and the the use the the
earthquake, scientists basicallyuse those carbon lenses to
carbon date them. And wherethere's a displacement of a
carbon lands and a certainlevel, they can determine that
there was a seismic event. So inthe western Mojave, there's

(31:21):
there's a couple of examples ofpublications done by
seismologists to look atearthquake histories that can
give you an idea of layers ofcarbon, charcoal carbon,
basically, we're talking aboutan idea in an LED in a watershed
anyway, frequency of fire. Butmost of the evidence really has

(31:42):
been kind of working back theother direction is, is been on
documenting vegetation changesover time, and inferring the
regimes that go along with thembased on current relationships,
so packnet packrat mittens, forexample, are we are pack rats or
big rats that that have bigpiles of things and rocks with

(32:02):
vegetation material. Andbasically they bring vegetation
material in there thatrepresents the area around their
their little den, and base withurine and feces deposit over
time, it crystallizes and almostmagnifies it, and creates
records over time that build upare stacked on top of each
other. And these usually rockcrevices, that can document

(32:24):
changes in vegetation in thesurrounding landscape based on
the composition, as well as therelative proportions of the
vegetation. And so those candocument back to almost 50,000
years. I don't do that workmyself, but

Megan Kay (32:41):
I there are those in are those present in Nevada? And
like Southern Nevada?,

Matt Brooks (32:45):
Yes, yes they are.
And they actually are betterpreserved as I understand it in
drier, warmer, drier climates.
And so it's really a valuablething in the high deserts to
determine vegetation compositionover time. So for example, there
is evidence that differentmittens up a watershed show that

(33:05):
vegetation types like pinyon andJuniper ecotones with like black
brush have moved up and down1000s of feet in elevation,
during the Holocene even whichis last 10,000 years since the
last ice age. So that's actuallya really valuable thing that
allows us to look at changes invegetation, and then infer the

(33:25):
fire regime that would go alongwith it, especially things
related to perennial grasses.
And And lastly, Pleistoceneduring the Pleistocene ice ice
ages waning and waxing andwaning. The levels of the the,
the, the lakes, the Pleistocenelakes in the Mojave, as they go
up, it's a wetter period as theygo down. It's a drier period,

(33:47):
and so you infer what'shappening in the greater
landscape around them in termsof vegetation, formations, from
grasslands, to woodlands,mostly, not so much for us for
us up on the mountaintops. Butoak woodlands even were pretty
prevalent in the Mojave duringdifferent times during the
Pleistocene. And you know, thesethese go back the Pleistocene

(34:09):
goes back about two and a halfmillion years. The Mojave Desert
is considered to have been adesert regions anywhere from the
last two to 5 million years. Sothere's different scales of time
that you can go back anddifferent types of evidence to
infer it's not direct evidenceof fire really likes what Stan
described with a with a charredremains on the rings in the

(34:31):
trees. But it gives us a generalidea about the prevalence and
and type of fire that wasoccurring and in general the
fire regimes

Megan Kay (34:40):
thanks for painting that picture. Yeah, cuz it's,
it's really interesting for me,for me and I think it will be
for our listeners to kind ofunderstand how you guys are
piecing this stuff together. Andthen at alley, I want to ask you
the same question based on likethe valleys in the Great Basin
maybe where there's big wherethey're sagebrush, and not
Trees.

Ali Urza (35:01):
So a lot of the overall topics that Matt and
Stan just talked about alsoapply to sagebrush and pinyon
Juniper systems, which are kindof the two major ecosystem types
that I work in. But so like, forexample, in pinyon Juniper
ecosystems, we do have somestudies that have direct
evidence of fire pinyon andJuniper. Species typically don't

(35:24):
survive fire well. Butoccasionally pinyon pine will
form scars if it's on the edgeof a fire perimeter. And so
there have been studies thathave crossed dated fire scars
from pinyon pine to provide kindof direct evidence of fire
history within particularlocations. And then, you know,

(35:45):
we additionally can use standages, so the ages of trees
within a woodland stand to infersomething about the disturbance
history pinyon and Juniperspecies typically don't
establish right after a fire,like more montane species might,
they might take decades to comein after a fire. So they're not

(36:05):
exact dates in the same way thatthey might be in other fight
more fire adapted ecosystems.
But that is helpful evidence tohelp us understand kind of the
general trends over time. Butwhat Matt said about inferring
disturbance history and firehistory based on vegetation

(36:27):
patterns, I think is really keyin some of these more arid
ecosystems. And one of thethings going back to a point
that Stan made earlier to one ofthe lines of evidence that we
can use when thinking aboutgeneral fire patterns or
disturbance patterns throughtime is using our understanding
of the traits of the speciesinvolved in their life history

(36:49):
strategies. And we know forexample, based on kind of more
contemporary observations, as Imentioned, pinyon and Juniper,
typically don't survive fire,and they often take many decades
to reestablish following fire.
So for example, the presence ofan older aged, persistent pinyon

(37:12):
Juniper woodland stand tells ussomething about the prevalence
of fire in its past. And so weknow that, you know, if there is
a persistent pinyon Juniperwoodland stand with, you know,
many trees that are several 100years old, we can infer that
there hasn't been fire on thatlandscape within several 100

(37:33):
years, or at least large, largeenough fires to kind of alter
that vegetation pattern over thebroader landscape. Similarly,
with sagebrush, sagebrush, thedominant sagebrush species in
Nevada, big sagebrush isn'tparticularly adapted to fire, it
doesn't really sprout afterfire, it seeds don't disperse

(37:56):
very far. So especially in thedrier landscapes, sagebrush
takes at least a couple ofdecades to recover after fire.
And so we can use thatinformation or that
understanding of the specieslife history strategies to
understand that, you know, veryfrequent fire on the order of,

(38:18):
you know, a couple of years ofrotation was probably unlikely
over long time periods insagebrush ecosystems. Yeah, Stam
had his hand up, I just do wantto make sure that I say that all
of these patterns are extremelyvariable through space. And one
of the interesting things aboutNevada and the Great Basin is
just how variable fuelcomposition, whether soil depth

(38:44):
and productivity in general isacross even very short spaces.
And so fire history might havebeen very different in a valley
bottom versus just upslopeversus higher upslope on on
rockier soils that have that areless productive and have lower
grass and forb cover that cankind of carry more frequent

(39:05):
fires,

Stanley Kitchen (39:06):
like what Ali had to share in terms of
sagebrush, we've done quite abit of work and others before me
at looking at, well, if, if, interms of the frequency or the,
the length, the period of timenecessary for there to, to, if
you're going to have a sagebrushsystem, what's the minimum

(39:27):
amount of fire or the minimumperiod of time without fire that
that conceal sustain is asagebrush system and, and
certainly, we know that mountainsagebrush so there are different
subspecies of this big sagebrushthat Ali alluded to and the in

(39:48):
montane systems that the thesubspecies that lives in
mountains, tends to be able tocome back much more quickly than
it can in the valleys. And so wesay, Well, if If If sagebrush
can come back in two to threedecades, there's not a lot of
there's there's still somedisagreement about how long it

(40:09):
takes. And it can differ on thesame spot from one fire to the
next through time. But But let'ssay on average somewhere between
two and 20 and 40 years,oftentimes sagebrush stand in
the mountains comes back andit's, it's pretty reached its
near its climax or that levelof, of well established

(40:31):
sagebrush community, then if youhave a fire regime in which you
have fire occurring every 10years, you know, it wasn't a
sagebrush community on that, onthat particular location. If it
was, if you have some recordthat indicates that fire may
have occurred 60, 70, 80 yearintervals, and then that may

(40:52):
indicate that it was verycompatible with a mountain
sagebrush community. If it's on,if it's in an area that's
subject to encroachment by treesof pinyon Juniper, but sometimes
it's first, sometimes it'sponderosa pine, and you're going
200 years or 300 years withoutfire, then that same landscape

(41:14):
may convert from a shrub landnow to a forest or woodland. So
that interaction between thevegetation is going to dominate
on the site. And the frequencyof fire on that site can be very
dynamic and change through timesubject to that that frequency
of, of when that disturbanceevents takes place, and how

(41:37):
often or where the sources of,of new propagules, seed or
whatever to repopulate thelocation after a fire event.

Megan Kay (41:53):
Communities located in wildfire prone areas need to
take extra measures to livesafely. There are many ways to
prepare communities andproperties for wildfire,
including creating andmaintaining adequate defensible
space and hardening homes towithstand wildfire. This could
mean altering or replacingcertain components of the home.
Our wildfire home retrofit guidewill help you better prepare
your home and communities forwildfire. You can find the guide

(42:16):
in the resources section of ourwebsite at living with fire
calm.

Christina Restaino (42:24):
It's important to point out and I
would love to hear your yourperspective, either Ali or or
Stan on this. There's thisthere's a lot of different
species and types of sagebrushin Nevada. And so there are the
dynamics of what other plantsexist within the sagebrush

(42:45):
community, modify how firebehaves on the landscape. And so
Allie, I don't know if you wantto say a bit about that.

Ali Urza (42:55):
I have to think about it for a second. So there are
there are kind of multiple partsof that question. So So yes,
there are different types ofsagebrush that do seem to there
are different subspecies thathave been identified that do
seem to have different traitsand have different abilities to
respond to fire. But probablymore importantly, is the
differences in climate thatthose subspecies occupy the

(43:18):
differences in the plantcommunity that they coexist
with. And so certainly whenthinking about kind of drivers
of patterns of fire, theabundance of fine fuels, so in
historically these would havebeen primarily perennial grasses

(43:40):
but but in kind of morecontemporary terms, and this is
also sort of moving into theconversation about recent
changes in fire regimes. We nowhave a large abundance of non
native annual grasses, whichprovide a more continuous fuel
surface at the lower elevationswhere they tend to dominate the

(44:01):
most, and that can increase thefrequency of fire, it increases
the length of the fire season.
Those annual grasses also suchas cheatgrass tend to be very
adapted to fire so fire canactually serve as like a
inducing event that canfacilitate the the initial

(44:22):
invasion of those grasses orincrease their dominance on the
landscape, which then gets intothe, what's termed the annual
grassfire cycle. A lot of Matt'swork is focused on this so I
definitely don't want to talktoo much about about that side
of things. But certainly,there's so much variation in the
role that fire plays across thelandscapes in Nevada and

(44:46):
especially in kind of the GreatBasin portion of Nevada that I'm
most familiar with that evenjust moving you know, uphill
from the valley bottom to acouple 100 meters higher in
elevation. You have completelydifferent landscapes that that
exists under very differentclimate regimes with very
different fuel compositions andthe role of fire and the

(45:06):
interaction between vegetationand fire is just so different
between them that it's very hardto make kind of blanket
statements about fire regime andsagebrush ecosystems, for
example.

Matt Brooks (45:18):
Yeah, I do I have permission to complicate the
conversation.

Megan Kay (45:22):
Yes. But I also wanted to put make sure you guys
are thinking about because I dowant to, because it's coming
with both Christina, Stan andAli, I do want to think starts
also thinking about how fireregimes have changed. Like
you're talking about cheatgrassinvasive species, and then how
the relationship between fireand vegetation and humans has

(45:43):
changed these ecosystems so Ididn't I don't want to derail
you. But I also want to put thatin your brain to start thinking
so

Matt Brooks (45:49):
Ao I can complicated in segue, how about
that?

Megan Kay (45:51):
Sounds good.

Matt Brooks (45:53):
So the My only booked for the complication is
that the discussion here in thegreat basin was sagebrush has
been about how different speciesvary in general, in terms of
their resilience to fire, solike sort of like their
evolutionary history with fireand their ability to, to persist
in a landscape that also hasfire. So there can be variations

(46:15):
also within those species, localeco types. One of the challenges
we have in the Mojave is that wehave these things called sky
islands, the top of themountains are little remnant
Great Basin enclaves. So they'relittle great basin landscapes on
the top of a mountain, and thebottom and the valleys. It's
creosote, and saltbush, andMojave, and the islands in the

(46:36):
mountains are climatically andvegetation wise, these little
species compositions that makesome Great Basin. And so
understanding how those specieshow those how, how great how big
sagebrush in the Mojave, how isit that has the same resilience
as a big sagebrush that's in aflat in the Great Basin? And so

(46:59):
we rely a lot on informationfrom the Great Basin to infer
what's going on the high in theMojave. But really, that's a big
question that sort of remains.
But the conversation is kind ofgoing more towards sort of fire
ecology. And so I'll steer steeryou back to what you were
talking about wanting us to go.
And that is how things havechanged. So I had mentioned

(47:21):
about how the fire frequency andamount Irish area, the inference
is that the history ofindigenous burning was was
changed when the ranchers came.
One of the other things that wefound lower elevations there's
actual you start getting intoevidence of fire through
historical documents. So earlypart of the 19 hundred's

(47:42):
especially into the well intothe 20s 30s and 40s. There is
agency documents in the Mojavethat exists, a lot of it from
Lincoln County, Nevada, which isecotone, between the great basin
and the Mojave where there was alot of ranching going on. At
that wet that give us an ideaabout how that had changed
things. So the land use oflivestock grazing. So in around

(48:05):
the 30s, late 30s and 40s, therewas evidence that there was
actually an estimate that about20% of the black brush in
Southern Nevada, was burned byranchers to try to promote more
forage in particular perennialgrasses. This is a period of
time at the end of a multidecadal period of higher
rainfall. And then in the late30s, early 40s, there were some

(48:27):
really high rainfall years. Sothe opposite My guess is, is
that the observation by theranchers was, hey, there's a
bunch of Indian rice grass gramagrass, that burning that's lives
in between these black brush. Ifwe could burn the black brush to
premium grass would come up,we'd have more forage for
livestock. And so they ended upburning a lot. And there was a
lot of records from that, thatwere that are still in

(48:50):
existence, I actually havegotten from some of the sub
county field office in SouthernNevada being one of them. And
there were photographs theytook. So there's some actually
really great evidence fromrecords, photographs, journals,
and reports. That indicates thatthere was a fair amount of
burning going on at that time.

(49:11):
From the standpoint of blackbrush, we now consider black
bread, something that doesn'tsurvive well with fire. And so
it's interesting to kind ofthink about, there's a lot of
black brush in Southern Nevadatoday, if there was all that
burning going on was there a lotmore if it hasn't recovered. But
some of the old photographswe've used we revisited these

(49:31):
photos from the 30s and 40s andfound black brush and pasted
places that show completely stanreplacing black brush, slicked
off just dirt a year after thefires. And so there's this is
another sort of evidence of morehow the settlement had changed
started to change fire regimeand some of the evidence we use

(49:52):
photographic evidence to figureout maybe how resilient things
like even black brush might be.
And you go into think about moremore, thinking more. You No more
deeply. And black brush at theedges of its ranges probably is
more resilient because it's anit's in an interface with other
vegetation types for firesoccurred more frequently, I've
found black brush re sprouting,and the interface with the

(50:13):
Sierra Nevada Mountains in thefar western Mojave. And it's on
the edge again of a differentfire regime. And so when you
find vegetation types, whetherit's great bass and sagebrush,
or whether it's big sagebrush orwhether it's, it's black brush
or whatever, that's far ranging,at its interface with other
vegetation types that burn morefrequently, there's a strong

(50:34):
likelihood that that thatspecies has a different
resilience than it does in otherareas, because it's experienced
a different historical fireregime than maybe it occurred in
the center of its range. And sothat's, that's sort of a
description of another way welook at fire regimes. It's also
something about the changes offire. The interesting thing

(50:55):
about so I'll just finish thislittle data dump with those
five, those photos, some ofthose photos from 40s, show
landscapes covered in red bromancheatgrass in the 40s, after
they burn black brush, andthat's an elevation zone today
where we find the brown species,both those species to be most

(51:18):
prevalent, and the biggest firecontributor is really in black
brush and the upper elevation,the creosote bush. So it's kind
of fascinating that back there,this it this there was the thing
that we think more of issomething that's evolved since
the 70s, at least in the Mojavewith red Rome. Photo evidence
suggests that, that it was veryprevalent postfire back during

(51:40):
that period of time, and it onlyis it was recorded red brome
anyways, from North Americanlate 1800s. So relatively
quickly, it got to a point whereit can cover around landscape in
Southern Nevada after blackbrush burn as early as the 40s

Megan Kay (51:59):
was, I mean, did people consider it? I mean, it
wasn't that much of a hazard I'msure, like people wanted those
grasses for forage for animalsand things like that.

Matt Brooks (52:09):
Well, it's more of the perennial grasses that that
that have higher nutritionalcontent poaching content, also
the annual grasses and they dryout their high Silikal. They're
not as palatable but definitelypalatable but but what's
interesting is that the seriesof reports, it shows how, and
these were these were actuallyfrom a predecessor of

(52:29):
Intermountain Research Station,I forget what it was, it's
called there's something LasVegas grazing district or
something. Stan, you probablyknow more about this history
than I do. But there was likeabout Ralph Holmgren was one of
them. One of the guys that wason this, and I think he's from
the Salt Lake area, I remembercorrectly. But at any rate,
there was about five or sixauthors on these on these

(52:51):
reports. And one of them put anaddendum to a report stating
that, that yeah, this did gogood. You know, I agree with
everybody else that burning didreduce shrub layer is quite a
bit and, and a cover, but I'mconcerned about this red brome
being something that mightpromote really frequent fires.

(53:12):
Nobody, nobody told him in anypublications or education that
that was this thing called thisgrass fires cycle with annual
grasses for the Mediterraneanregion. And but it was really
interesting that that he saw hisperception of how much fuel
there was fine fuel a coupleyears after fire on the
landscape was was significantenough for him to put in

(53:33):
writing. And what year was, isthe probably the late 40s report
was about these field visits. Soyeah, there's some just by
chance that was, you know,records that have not been
thrown out over the years fromagency offices that provide a
really, I think, fascinatinginsight into what was going on

(53:54):
in the management side of thingsduring that period of time. And
it's not this is not typicalMojave. This is more of an
ecotone region between theMojave in the Great Basin, but
it is in Southern Nevada.

Christina Restaino (54:08):
So so I'll just add, I don't believe that
anybody was excited to have thethe broam cattle don't care for
it. sheep are the ones that inspringtime only will consume the
TCE graphs and maybe the Brom Idon't know as much about that,
but I know that but I'm not surethat sheep are introduced until

(54:34):
later, so I'm not sure that thatit was ever considered an
advantageous thing to have onthe landscape.

Stanley Kitchen (54:40):
Alright, then, let me add a little bit inside I
have available a you know, in1992, we did a symposium
basically it was an annual grasssymposium in the gray basin. And
I thought that was we were likecutting edge or something until
I ran across proceedings of asymposium that was in In the
late 50s, and it was called thecheatgrass symposium. And what

(55:03):
have we learned so far aboutcheatgrass is what it was about.
And, of course, it was a verydifferent perspective than you
think think late 50s, early 60s,right, I can't remember the
exact year but but many of thepapers that were presented in
that symposium talked aboutcheatgrass in a favorable way
that it's on that they talkedabout the biomass available

(55:25):
production, compared to somesystems, when cheatgrass is not
present. She came into someportions of the Great Basin and
certainly in the Utah portion ineastern Nevada, as early as the
1870s. And so that they've beenaround for a while cattle,

(55:47):
certainly a little bit longerthan than sheep, but both of
them quite for quite a longperiod of time. And they saw
cheatgrass as a valuable foragethat was not always dependable
as a good way to put it, I thinkand, and somewhat short lived,
but still still as portrayed.
Now this is not all of thepresentations, but but many of
the presentations portrayed itis, is something perhaps more

(56:10):
favorable than we see it today.
And the potential effects offire either were not considered
very much or they wereconsidered in a more favorable
light since fire could get ridof, sagebrush. And sagebrush was
considered part of the enemythat we needed to get rid of. So

(56:32):
we could grow more grass. And sothat opened my eyes up a little
bit in terms of how long peoplehave been looking at that cheat
grass and trying to decide whatto do with it. And I'm not sure
yet in my own mind, how muchprogress we've made in 70 years,

Matt Brooks (56:50):
I'll just, I'll just add that from a perspective
of what drives fire in theMojave, the thing that Trumps
any of what we've discussed sofar is climate for the Mojave,
its fuel limited. So forexample, what I just described
about the burning by beingSouthern Nevada during the 40s

(57:10):
30s and 40s, that was at aperiod the end of a period of a
multi year multi decadal periodof drought from about 1900 to
not drought, higher rainfall1900 to about 40 from 1940 to
75. It was a period of very lowrainfall in the Mojave, often
referred to as the mid centurydrought. And I I don't think I'm

(57:31):
able to find a single record offire from the Mojave during that
time and then started in 76through especially 2006 period
of higher rainfall some El Nio years and and it was almost li
e the the at that period of tim, the fire the fire managers w

(57:53):
re just starting to say hey, tere's fire has never happened b
fore. And it's it's because fre oftentimes don't have the h
storical perspective. They jst have how long they've been i
the field office and that prspective and, and so fire i
crease during that period of tme really has been was can c
incident with increased icreased rainfall. I
terestingly, when you talk aout bromus, there's a series o

(58:15):
the Nevada Test Site with Jnice Bailey from UCLA was p
oduced a lot of the great iformation on on an annual g
oss annual plants and plant cmmunities in Southern Nevada, s
arting in the 60s, and the Nvada Test Site was a place w
ere she was contracted to do srveys. And there's a p
blication that one of the pople that work with are R

(58:36):
chard hunter road. And he bsically showed in the records o
the Janice beatley Records sarting in the 60s, up through I
think it was 79, this eponential increase in red bone d
nsity. And his publication was ad this is red Roman baiting t
e test site. Starting in the 6s. Why just told you that t
ere was public, there's pctures in Southern Nevada of u
covering a post fire landscape fom the 40s. And his p

(59:00):
rspective was coming out of te mid century drought, right. A
d so red brome was at an era aa level where you could i
entify swathes of in in black ad white photographs. And you k
ow, somebody was enough there fr somebody to make a note of i
in a report during the 40s. Ad yet, the perception was that i

(59:20):
was just invading and about Suthern Nevada in the 60s. More t
an likely it was knocked back dring that mid century drought. S
so some interesting sort of hstorical perspectives about l
ke Sam was talking about the prspective of cheatgrass then a
d now we have to kind of think aout the perspective of, in t
is case, red brome on the lndscape, but also the p

(59:41):
rspective of fire on the lndscape based on historical c
ntext, and oftentimes I try to Itry to describe like the q
estion being, you know, where ad when is fire of use or could b
considered to have positive rsource benefits in the Mojave A
d I always have to say it's in te context of the historical c

(01:00:04):
ntext. And, and then, of curse, what your resource b
nefit definitions are. But rally, I think the underlying t
ing about this, the whole teme of this podcast being h
story of fire, is how does it hlp us manage today? How does i
make help us make decisions tday, given the history of f
re? And what we know about it? Hw does it help us make m

(01:00:26):
nagement decision today, and al these different things we've b
en talking about all cntribute to that.

Stanley Kitchen (01:00:32):
Fire is best viewed as, as a tool. And it's
just one of the tools we have inthe toolbox. There there, there
are other tools, including doingnothing, but that there's
consequences the use of all ofthe tools. So we need to use
those tools as wisely as we can,and keep this full toolbox as we
as possible. So we have lots ofoptions that we can deal with,

(01:00:55):
learn from the use of thosetools, and use them as wisely as
possible in a changing and andsometimes unpredictable future
that we have in front of us.
We've occurred a few timestoday, the idea of fires both
can be good or bad. And I wouldgo back to a quote, the way I
started, this was from Bob keen,he said, fire is neither good

(01:01:15):
or bad fires an importantcological process that can
roduce variable effects, thealue of these effects must be
nterpreted in the context ofuman desires and needs. So
here's this interaction ofires just a process, it's
omething that happens, it willlways happen, as long as

(01:01:36):
here's fuels available, andhere's any ignition source
and enough oxygen in the atmospere. And we can look at the la
dscape and say, Is it betterthat we use fire in the timing
that we would maybe want to appy it on this particular landsc
pe or some other disturance process that would get it

(01:01:57):
get an ecological outcome that'spreferable? Or are we just g
ing to let fire happen on its tems, sometimes as under the mo
t severe fire climate, thinkalifornia the last few year
, and, and we just, we just getut of the way and left and then
try and clean up the mess aftewards. That's where fire has

(01:02:19):
place. Because we can decie that that's where pres
ribed fire has a place that we cn decide when and where and how
t's applied. If we just backaway and don't use it at all,
and wait for natural fire to ocur, sometimes it's in the wron
time, the wrong place, the wroncircumstances. And the role
results can be much worse.

Ali Urza (01:02:41):
Yeah, what I was thinking about ending on was
kind of parallels a little bitof what Stan was talking about.
But I just think it's in themanagement context, it's really
important to emphasize thatfire, like any management tool
has trade offs. And those tradeoffs very, very quickly through
space, depending on theecosystem type that that we're

(01:03:02):
looking at. And the trade offsare really going to change as we
move into the future indifferent climate conditions.
With different speciescompositions, we have a lot of
non native species that arebecoming more prevalent in the
Great Basin. And so I just thinkit's really important, like I
completely Second, the sentimentthat they're thinking about fire

(01:03:24):
as good or bad reallyoversimplifies the issue. It
really is an issue, it's amatter of trade offs. Among
competing values really arecompeting conditions on the
landscape. And sometimes thereisn't a clear, you know, correct
condition that we don't have100% clear vision of what

(01:03:47):
historic conditions were, weknow, the historic conditions
were quite variable, we alsoknow that, you know, given the
changes that have occurred, it'sunlikely that we'll ever be able
to fully mimic historicconditions, whatever they might
have been. And so I think it'sjust really important to have
transparent and openconversations about the trade
offs involved with allmanagement tools. And we still

(01:04:07):
have a lot to learn about whatexactly those trade offs are.
And sometimes we see hugesurprises, you know, related to
ecological or, you know,economic effects on the
landscape after applying certainmanagement treatments, or
management approaches, and soanyway, I think that's just my,

(01:04:28):
my main takeaway, kind ofintegrating these ecological
management, content concepts isjust that it's really important
that that conversation be reallytransparent and honest about
what those trade offs are. Andthe fact that our societal
values change through time aswell. And so what we're managing

(01:04:49):
for and what we see is valuableor good on the landscape changes
very rapidly and so yeah, it'sjust important to keep that in

Christina Restaino (01:04:57):
It often changes, more rapidly then the
mind.
planning processes and lawsallow us to it changes at a
quicker pace than those do.

Ali Urza (01:05:09):
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I worked before I went
into research I worked as anecologist for the BLM. And I
would always just laugh it, youknow, being out in the field and
see these swats from just a fewdecades ago of aerial herbicide
eating of huge sagebrush standsacross huge landscapes. And when

(01:05:29):
I was working there, probably50% of our annual budget went
into sagebrush restoration,replanting, and all of that, and
it's just, it's, it's a littlebit frustrating and it kind of
how quickly the pendulum swingsback and forth. But I think
that, you know, like I said, Ithink that missing from a lot of

(01:05:51):
those conversations is justreally an open discussion of
what the trade offs are andbeing really explicit about what
values we're managing for andwhy. So that when our when our
values do change, we you know,have a good understanding of how
our management can changeaccordingly.

Megan Kay (01:06:15):
Thank you for listening to the living with
fire podcast, you can find morestories about wildfire and other
resources at living withfire.com. The Living of fire
program is funded by theUniversity of Nevada, Reno,
extension, Nevada Division ofForestry, Bureau of Land
Management and the United StatesForest Service.