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.

For more full episode details including the transcript, visit https://www.buzzsprout.com/1819551/episodes/9356318

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 (00:00):
Hey, welcome to the Living with Fire Podcast where

(00:21):
we share stories and resourcesto help you live more safely
with wildfire.
Hi, I'm Megan Kay, your host andOutreach Coordinator for the
Living with Fire Program. Onthis episode, we are going to do
a deep dive into fire ecology inNevada. We talked to some fire

(00:42):
ecologists 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 (01:08):
I'm Christina Restaino. I'm the
Director of the program and onthe faculty at at UNR. I
specialize in wildland fire,drought, forestry impacts on on

(01:28):
terrestrial ecosystems in theWest. Used to work more in the
forest ecosystems, but I'mlearning more about the
sagebrush ecosystems and and therangeland ecosystems of the
West. Now that I have my newposition at UNR so I've been
here since August 2019 so stillrelatively new. So excited to

(01:50):
hear from you guys,

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

(02:13):
have a little bit of backgroundin the ecology, just from what I
was taught when I was doingtreat, you know, field
treatments and everything. SoI'm kind of that, I think
Christina pointed out last lastinterview, I'm, like, the
straight man, you know, I'm theperson who will probably, like
challenge you on terms and kindof unpack any sort of rhetoric.
So if I slow you down orinterrupt you to explain

(02:37):
anything, don't be offended.
It's just me trying tounderstand. And then I, you
know, I've done research andI've read you guys work, so I
have a good idea of what's going

Ali Urza (02:45):
So I'm Allie Urza. I'm a research ecologist with the
on but.
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 or whatkind of drives me in this
regard, I grew up in Nevada. Iactually grew up in Reno, and
then I left for a long time, andI feel just super excited to be

(03:50):
able to be back in this area.
This is definitely kind of theGreat Basin is like my sole
region. I think it's a veryunder appreciated, but
magnificent landscape, and it'spersonally challenging to see a
lot of the stressors and changeshappening in real time in the
Great Basin. And I think thatobservation of ongoing changes

(04:13):
really motivates my work, and Ijust love having the opportunity
to be able to work in the field,in particular, in these great
landscapes so.

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

Matt Brooks (04:42):
Matt Brooks, I'm a Supervisor and Research
Ecologist for the US GeologicalSurvey Western Ecological
Research Center in at theYosemite Field Station. I'm the
PI there. I've been working onfire since 89 when I was a
Master's student, and most of mywork has been in the hot

(05:04):
deserts, mostly the MojaveDesert. Ellie mentioned the
Great Basin might be underappreciated. I would submit
Mojave might be even lessappreciated, especially the
standpoint of fire. And so oneof the things that's drawn me to
working on fire in the Mojave isthat, because of its
infrequency, even compared tothe Great Basin, it's there

(05:28):
hasn't been nearly as much workdone in the in the Mojave as in
the Great Basin. And today,there's fewer people working on
fire in the Mojave than in theGreat Basin, by quite a few. And
so although oftentimes I'm askedto talk about fire in the Great
Basin, and I do my best. I'm Myexpertise is really in the

(05:49):
Mojave. And so in this podcast,that's probably where most what
I can contribute the most. Nowyou might ask why someone at the
Yosemite Field Station isworking in the Mojave. I do
other things too. I work onYosemite toads and mountain
yellow-legged frogs, among otherthings. And so as an ecologist,

(06:10):
we do, we're asked to do a lotof things, and as a federal
ecologist is, as you know, weall know there's lots of
different things that oftenscience is needed for and and so
that's what got me in some ofthese other topics. I've been at
the Yosemite Field Station since2007 and previous to that, I was

(06:36):
in Southern Nevada at theHenderson Field or Las Vegas
Field Office of USGS. Probablythe niche I have to other than
desert fire. Mojave Desert firehas been interaction between
invasive species and fire, andso I've done work with things
like salt cedar and ripariansystems and other species than
non native grasses, mustards,that sort of thing. And I'm

(06:59):
still here, still doing it, andbeen working for US. Well, it
was National Biological Survey,and actually, going back quite a
ways, I started working for thefederal government, sort of on
contract right after this, rightafter the Babbitt
Administration, and MBS wasformed, and I was, I've been a
full time research scientistsince 98,

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

Stanley Kitchen (07:40):
I'm Stan Kitchen, I'm with the the Rocky
Mountain Research Station, likealley, only on the other side of
the Great Basin in in my myoffice, as rarely as I see it
nowadays with with COVIDlockout, or whatever we want to
call it, is in Provo Utah. I'ma, as I said, a research

(08:00):
botanist, and so maybe a littlebit different angle on things in
that I'm very much interested inthe interaction of of plant
communities and disturbance,fire being one of those
disturbances, but grazing or ordrought, or a number of
different other kinds ofdisturbances can be important as

(08:22):
well, and and I'm interested inthe whole plant community, how
that adjusts to or interactswith disturbance, but also
individual species, how they'readapted for for those
disturbance events or patternsof disturbance, so that they can
continue to persist onlandscape. I have found a real

(08:47):
niche or interest in looking inhistorical patterns. We can, if
we can find ways to uncover oror open up understanding to the
past, it can tell us a lot inour present or about our present

(09:07):
circumstances without having towait long periods of time. So I
like that intersection betweenbetween history or natural
history, and science and and andthen trying to figure out how we
can unpack that for for forthings that are happening in the

(09:27):
world today that that makessense for us. So that's been
been my career, and I work inthe Great Basin, as well as in
other parts of Utah and theIntermountain West, primarily
Nevada and Utah. Then a littlebit of work in Idaho and other
areas 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 now.
I when doing research on thispodcast a term that kind of that
that, I guess it's a common termin in ecology and fire ecology,
but it's something that Inoticed, and as someone who
doesn't have an ecologybackground, helped me understand
this topic. And that term isfire regime. You guys all have

(10:31):
it appears in a lot of yourguys's research. And so I wanted
to quickly unpack that term alittle bit and talk about what
is a fire regime and what, howwe use it to understand fire
behavior, and how we use it tostudy the history of fire. So

(10:51):
I'm gonna kind of you guys canraise your hand who wants to go
first, but because I don't haveanyone in mind who wants to
address this first, but who?
Yeah, let's just talk about whata 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.
This quote I've used a number oftimes. He says it is now
apparent that fire once played arole in shaping all but the
wettest, the most arid or thethe most fire shelter plant
communities in the UnitedStates. And I would add to that,

(11:28):
that fire has been a part ofvegetation almost since plants
emerged and began growing on dryland, the coal records and other
records make it very clear,especially during periods of
time when we had high oxygenlevels, when even wet vegetation
would burn, that plants havebeen kind of adjusting and

(11:49):
evolving and adapting to fire asa part of their environment for
a very long time. So that'sfire, fire regime we usually
break down into we'll describe afire regime based not on one
fire, one fire doesn't tell usmuch about a fire regime, but we

(12:11):
describe a fire regime in termsof patterns of fire, patterns to
time, patterns across space andand, and some some other
factors. For example, patternsthat might be important in a
fire regime, or the frequency offire. How often might a fire

(12:33):
return to the same place onlandscape, or what season of the
year that fire would occur,that's that's also part of the
temporal or portion of a fireregime, and connected to that is
the regularity of fire. Is itsomething that's almost on a

(12:55):
regular pattern? Is itsynchronized with drought, or
some other factor. Is there someway that that and that that's
non fire related, but certainlyimportant. The spatial pattern
of fire is also important, arefires large? Are they small? Are
they continuous? Are theypatchy? All of those are

(13:16):
important portion of this thingthat we call fire regime. And
finally, there's things likefire intensity. How hot does a
fire burn? How long does it burnhot, or how severe is a fire?
How large of an impact might ithave on the on the vegetation in
a landscape that would generallywhat we refer to as severity.

(13:36):
And then sometimes a portion ofa fire regime is, is it a human
caused fire regime with humanignitions? Our Native Americans
here, but all hunter gatherersocieties across the world
through time have used fire as avery important tool. So human
fire regimes versus natural fireregimes, which is except for a

(14:00):
few places where you havevolcanoes, it means lightning
are are another way ofdescribing or getting at this,
this idea of what's the patternof fire through space and
through time on a landscape, andall of those factors, the
temporal factors, the spatialfactors and the other factors
interact. So if you havefrequent fire, it's more likely

(14:23):
to be low severity or lowintensity, and oftentimes
smaller fires. Less frequentfire is more likely to be large
fires, high severity or highintensity fire. So there's those
interactions always going onwithin those different measures
or metrics of fire.

Megan Kay (14:45):
Yeah is, did that?
Matt, Ali, do you guys want toadd anything or, like, maybe,
maybe also some context is,like, how we use fire regimes as
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, fire regimes
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,in 74 he had a seminal
publication on fire in thedeserts North America, and his
quote was because of theinescapably close correlations
between prevalence of fire andthe amount of fuel. Deserts are
characteristically less affectedby fire than most ecosystems.
However, even though firefrequency and severity may be

(15:36):
relatively low in any ratingscale, their effects on the
ecosystem may be extreme. Andthe point being is, is that in a
place like at the more arid endof the spectrum with a lower
fuel in the fuel end of thespectrum, in Southern Nevada,
especially at the lowerelevations, fire can be very
infrequent, but when it doeshappen, it can be a really

(15:56):
significant ecological andmanagement event. And because
the fire regimes vary sodramatically even over the space
of a couple miles, as you go upin elevation or down in
elevation. And so I would justadd that, you know, fire regimes
are sort of characteristics ofthey can be characteristics of

(16:18):
very local scales. They could bea watershed. They can be a north
facing slope on a watershed thathas a different fire regime than
the desert that's down below itthat the watershed spreads down
to because fire might occur overtime relatively frequently at
those upper elevations, but assoon as it hits to the bottom of
the watershed, there's notenough fuel to carry it down

(16:41):
into the flats and into thebasins. And so I think that's
one thing just to add, is thatit can vary. Regimes can vary
really locally over time, butthen also they can vary over
over centuries, decades andcenturies, with changing
climates. So you might havevegetations that move up slope

(17:02):
and down slope. It's really beendramatic in the Mojave in that
regard over time, because youhave such a wide range of cover,
from less than 5% shrub coverto, you know, 40% 45% at the top
of mountains in the samegeographical area. And so that
would be the main thing that Iwould add to that, is that it

(17:24):
can vary tremendously over shortlandscape features, but which
makes it really difficult tomanage sometimes in that

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 lessfrequent fires are on the

(17:57):
landscape, the fewer records wehave of 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 in 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 record that fire

(18:44):
records take is a lot morechallenging in ecosystems that
tend to experience higherseverity fires with that are
stand replacing or ecosystem orvegetation replacing. So the
ecosystem types that we havereally good records of fire for
are like, for example, ponderosapine ecosystems, where we tend

(19:07):
to have high frequency, lowseverity fires that leave a
record of fire in the form offire scars that we can date at
an annual resolution andreconstruct over various spatial
scales. And in desertecosystems, we don't have those
high precision records of fireso our understanding of historic
fire regimes is a lot morelimited, and there's a lot of

(19:30):
debate over what historic fireregimes looked like in desert
ecosystems really driven by thatkind of lower fidelity of fire
records.

Megan Kay (19:48):
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livingwithfire.com.
I'm so glad you brought that up,because that's one thing that I
think part of the reason whythis is such an interesting

(20:34):
topic to me, and I think will beto our viewers, is trying to
understand what, like, what rolefire played in the in the Nevada
landscape, historically, so thatwe can get an idea of how it's
changed to do to the due to manyfactors. And I like the idea,

(20:58):
you know, I like to imagine youguys as, like, detectives, you
know, trying to solve thesemysteries. And you were talking
about, like these documents,like tree scars, or something
you can point to and say, hey,look, there was a fire here,
because you can look at thistree ring, what this is not on
the questions I asked I sent youguys. This is just me kind of

(21:20):
improving here, quick, like realquickly. Can you kind of explain
some of the ways you guysinvestigate, and try to use any
sort of like you speculate, butthen you try to, you know, back
that up with research andevidence, and what type of
things are you looking at inyour research in order to, kind

(21:43):
of like, fill in the gaps andgive people a history of what,
what role fire played in thelandscape. And then we can go,
let's just go in the same order.
So Stan, do you want to startwith that one? Yeah, go ahead.

Stanley Kitchen (21:58):
First, I'd like to start with when, when we were
talking about fire in Nevada orfire in the Great Basin. And
I'll maybe, without thinking toomuch, use those interchangeably.
The Great Basin and Nevada arenot exactly the same geography,
but but close enough for ourpurposes. I hope that we have

(22:19):
over 100 mountain ranges, andeach of those are somewhat
unique from from each otherthere and then they're separated
by these dry valleys. And so myemphasis has been working in the
mountain systems, and Matt andand Ali spent a lot of time in
the valleys, and so I'm part ofmy purpose will be to make sure

(22:43):
that the mountains are wellrepresented, and what's going on
in the in those 100 or somountain ranges, 100+ mountain
ranges. There's a lot we don'tknow yet, but there but we have
learned a lot about the theecosystems and the place of fire
in those ecosystems, and one ofthe ways we do that is through
dendrochronology, which is thestudy of tree rings. And the

(23:04):
very simple explanation is treesproduce a new growth ring on the
just under the bark on an annualbasis. So as a tree gets older,
it's it's put it's producing anew ring. And those rings can
capture information about theenvironment as they are
produced. I mean, so theyproduce a sort of a history of

(23:27):
the local environment, includingthings such as fire and and be
oftentimes fire won't injurethat the tree without killing
the tree. And that injury iscaptured in and ponderosa pine
is the one of the better treesfor recording not just a single
fire, but multiple fires. Andthese are fires that tend to

(23:49):
burn along the ground and in inmaybe into the brush or small
trees, but are not the bigcrowning fires that usually make
the news, where all trees arekilled and you're left with kind
of a moonscape. These are, theseare low severity, low intensity
fires and or ground fire,surface fires. So often a tree,

(24:10):
when it once it's been injured,once it can be injured multiple
times. Bark will fall off ofthat and it will leave an injury
area that's easily recognizableon the trunk of a tree. Again,
kind of a triangular pattern.
And as we look in that thatinjured area without bark, there
will be char from fires and andevidence within, within those
growth rings, a pattern ofgrowth rings, of of those

(24:34):
injuries that, by cutting across section through that, we
can examine the growth rings andsee right to the year when those
fires occurred in the past, andand, and so it's not uncommon in
some places where fire isfrequent on the landscape, we
might see evidence of anywherefrom from a few to 10 or 20

(24:56):
fires recorded in a particulartree. And then if we gather
information from multiple trees,say in a watershed or from or on
a hill slope or across anelevational gradient, then we
can start putting together ideasabout the pattern of fire, both
through time and space on thatlandscape. And that's been a lot

(25:21):
of what I've done in some of themountains 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 Shell Creek Range. Those areareas where ponderosa pine is
found. And so it's easier tomake this kind of a study

(25:43):
though, though I have, I haveobserved fire scars, and not
just ponderosa pine, but limberpine, bristlecone pine, white
fir, douglas fir, inglemanspruce, even quaking aspen, at
times can form distinguishablefire scar. So it's, it's, it's

(26:05):
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 temp these thesehistories of that are connected
to particular tree. And again,with multiple trees on the
landscape, we can put togetherboth patterns of spatial

(26:27):
patterns as well as temporalpatterns of of how fire is on
the landscape. And sometimeswhen the fires are high severity
and they kill all the plants.
Then then you can sample thosetrees and know the year that
they died in, also as a way ofgetting at those records. Or
even when a forest is opened andopened up because of that kind

(26:50):
of a high severity fire, you getnew trees established
afterwards. The dates on whenthose trees first started
growing can also help tell youabout 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 treescars.

Megan Kay (27:13):
So I'm going to circle back and then after
because I want to ask Matt andAlly something, but I'm going to
circle back and ask about thechanges in fire that you've
noticed historically. But firstI want to go to Matt and kind of
ask. So we just heard about howyou study the history of fire
with ponderosa pines and inforests where there are stands

(27:35):
of trees, how do you study thehistory of fire in the Mojave

Matt Brooks (27:39):
Yeah, so I think a good segue from what Stan
described was, was an examplefrom the ecotone between the
Mojave and the Great Basin thatincludes individual sort of
sentinel 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 on informationabout the general frequency of
fire in an area. So I'm talkingabout these individual pines
that are in an area that's nowcurrently sage brush and pinion

(28:22):
and juniper. And there's anexample from you mentioned the
Irish mountains. And there'sMount Irish publication, where,
for hundreds of years, up untilabout the mid 1800s when the
ranchers came in, there werefires that occurred sometimes,
sometimes less than, you know, adecade between fires, but

(28:42):
pretty, you know, regularburning in this region. And then
as soon as the ranchers came in,the burning almost ceased. That
record in the tree and theinference is, is, is that there
was a tremendous amount ofburning by Native Americans,
probably for things likeperennial grass production,

(29:02):
pinion production, seedproduction. So there was, I
think that in the Mojave,there's some inferences, well,
that's actual evidence, butthere's also inferences from
traditional knowledge, fromnative tribes, about especially
in riparian areas, for managingmesquite. Mesquite was a very
valuable crop, and you'd gethigher production if you were

(29:25):
to, if you're regular,regularly, clear around 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 meals
cool, kind of like the pinionseeds, but it's in the it's in
the context of riparian systems,also in a landscape like the
Mojave, where water is at apremium. And really water
dictates whether humanhabitation is possible, even

(29:56):
today, in regular burningaround. Spring sites would
increase spring flow. We knowthat today, it's it clearly
happened in the past. There'sevidence that that was done in
the past, also basketrymaterials, 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?

Matt Brooks (30:17):
Yeah, well, basically, basically, it's
evapotranspiration, reducingvegetation amount, you increase
the amount of flow to thesurface 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,

(30:39):
like I gave an example ofembedded trees. But other
evidence is, there's, there's avery rare occurrence. I know of
a couple 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

(31:02):
while, you get a carbon lensfrom a fire. And the strategy
the they use the earthquakescientists basically use those
carbon lenses to carbon datethem. And where there's a
displacement of a carbon lens ata certain level, they can
determine that there was aseismic event. So in the western
Mojave, there's, there's acouple of examples of

(31:23):
publications done byseismologists to look at
earthquake histories that cangive you an idea of layers of
carbon, charcoal carbonbasically.We're talking about
and an idea in an in awatershed, anyway, frequency of
fire. But most of the evidencereally has been kind of working

(31:45):
back the other direction is isbeen on documenting vegetation
changes over time and inferringthe regimes that go along with
them based on currentrelationships. So pack net, pack
rat mittens, for example, arepack rats are big rats that that
have big piles of things androcks with vegetation material.

(32:05):
And based, they bring vegetationmaterial in there that
represents the area around theirtheir little den. And based with
urine and feces deposit overthem over time, it crystallizes
and almost mummifies it andcreates records over time that
build up are stacked on top ofeach other in these usually rock
crevices, that can documentchanges in vegetation in the

(32:28):
surrounding landscape based onthe composition as well as the
relative proportions of thevegetation. And so those can
document back to almost 50,000years. I don't do that work
myself.

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

Matt Brooks (32:46):
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 hot deserts to
determine vegetation compositionover time. So for example,
there's evidence that differentmiddens up a watershed show that
vegetation types like pinion andjuniper ecotones with like black

(33:10):
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
will allows us to look atchanges in vegetation and then
infer the fire regime that wouldgo along with it, especially
things related to perennialgrasses and and lastly,

(33:34):
Pleistocene. During thePleistocene ice ages, waning and
waxing and waning, the levels ofthe the the lakes, the
Pleistocene lakes in the Mojaveas they go up, it's a wetter
period. As they go down, it's adrier period. And so you infer
what's happening in the greaterlandscape around them in terms
of vegetation formations, fromgrasslands to woodlands, mostly,

(33:58):
not so much forest forests up onthe mountain tops, but oak
woodlands even were prettyprevalent in the Mojave during
different times during thePleistocene. And you know,
these, these go back. ThePleistocene goes back about two
and a half million years. TheMojave Desert is considered to
have been a desert regionsanywhere for the last two to 5
million years. So there'sdifferent scales of time that

(34:21):
you can go back and differenttypes of evidence to infer it's
not direct evidence of firereally likes what Stan described
with the with the charredremains on the rings and the
trees, but it gives us a generalidea about the prevalence and
type of fire that was occurring,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, Ali, I want to ask you the
same question, based on, like,the Valleys and the Great Basin,
maybe where there's big, wherethere's 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, whichare kind of the two major
ecosystem types that I work in.
But so like, for example, inPinyon-Juniper ecosystems, we do
have some studies that havedirect evidence of fire pinion
and juniper species typicallydon't survive fire well, but

(35:24):
occasionally, pinion pine willform scars if it's on the edge
of a fire perimeter. And sothere have been studies that
have cross dated fire scars frompinyon pine to provide kind of
direct evidence of fire historywithin particular locations. And
then, you know, we additionallycan use stand ages, so the ages

(35:45):
of trees within a woodland standto infer something about the
disturbance history. Pinion andjuniper species 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
exact dates in the same way thatthey might be in other more fire

(36:08):
adapted ecosystems, but that ishelpful evidence to help us
understand kind of the generaltrends over time. But what Matt
said about inferring disturbancehistory and fire history based
on vegetation patterns, I think,is really key in some of these

(36:29):
more arid ecosystems. And one ofthe things going back to a point
that Stan made earlier too, oneof the 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
strategies, and we know, forexample, based on kind of more

(36:53):
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-Juniper woodland standtells us something about the

(37:18):
prevalence of fire in its past.
And so we know that, you know,if there is a persistent
Pinyon-Juniper woodland standwith, you know, many trees that
are several 100 years old, wecan infer that there hasn't been
fire on that landscape withinseveral 100 years, or at least
large, large enough fires tokind of alter that vegetation

(37:39):
pattern over the broaderlandscape. Similarly, with
sagebrush. Sagebrush, thedominant sagebrush species in
Nevada, big sagebrush, isn'tparticularly adapted to fire. It
doesn't re sprout after fire.
Its seeds don't disperse veryfar. So especially in the drier

(37:59):
landscapes, sagebrush takes atleast a couple of decades to
recover after fire. And so wecan use that information, or
that understanding of thespecies life history strategies,
to understand that, you know,very frequent fire on the order
of, you know, couple of years ofrotation was probably unlikely

(38:21):
over long time periods insagebrush ecosystems. Yeah. Sam
had his hand up. Yeah. I just dowant to make sure that I say
that all of these patterns areextremely variable through
space. And one of theinteresting things about Nevada
and the Great Basin is just howvariable fuel composition,

(38:42):
whether soil depth andproductivity in general is
across even very short spaces.
And so fire history might havebeen very different in a valley
bottom versus just upslopeversus higher upslope on a on
rockier soils that have that areless productive and have lower
grass and forb cover that cankind of carry more frequent

(39:04):
fires.

Stanley Kitchen (39:06):
I like what Ellie had to share in terms of
sagebrush. We've done quite abit of work and others before me
looking at, well if, if, interms of the frequency or the
the length of 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 can still sustain asagebrush system and and
certainly we know that MountainSage Brush. So there are
different subspecies of this bigsagebrush that Ali alluded to,
and the in Montane systems thatthe the subspecies that lives in

(39:51):
mountains, tends to be able tocome back much more quickly than
it can in the valleys. And so wesay, well if sagebrush can come
back in two to three decades,there's not a lot of there's
there's still some disagreementabout how long it takes, and it
can differ in the same spot fromone fire to the next through

(40:13):
time, but, but let's say, onaverage, somewhere between two
and in 20 and 40 years,oftentimes, a sagebrush staying
in the mountains comes back andit's and it's pretty reached its
nearest climax, or that level ofwell established sagebrush
community. Then if you have afire regime in which you have

(40:36):
fire occurring every 10 years,you know it wasn't a sagebrush
community on that on thatparticular location, if it was,
if you have some record thatindicates that fire may have
occurred 60, 70, 80 yearintervals. Then, then that may
indicate that it was verycompatible with a Mountain Sage
Brush community, if it's on, ifit's in an area that's subject

(41:00):
to encroachment by trees ofPinyon-Juniper, but sometimes
it's fir sometimes it'sponderosa pine, and you're going
200 years or 300 years withoutfire, then that same landscape
may convert from a shrub landnow to a forest or woodland. So
that interaction between thevegetation is going to dominate

(41:23):
on the site and the frequency offire on that site, it can be
very dynamic and change throughtime subject to that that
frequency of of when thatdisturbance events takes place,
and how often, or where thesources of new propagules, seed

(41:43):
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 livingwithfire.com.

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

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

Ali Urza (42:53):
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

(43:14):
differences in climate thatthose subspecies occupy, the
differences In the plantcommunity that they coexist with
and so certainly when thinkingabout kind of drivers of
patterns of fire, the abundanceof fine fuels, so in

(43:36):
historically, these would havebeen primarily perennial
grasses, but in kind of morecontemporary terms. And this is
also sort of moving into theconversation about change,
recent changes in fire regimes.
We now have a large abundance ofnon native annual grasses, which
provide a more continuous fuelsurface at the lower elevations,

(43:57):
where they tend to dominate themost, and that can increase the
frequency of fire the itincreases the length of the fire
season. Those annual grasses,also, such as cheatgrass, tend
to be very adapted to fire, sofire can actually serve as like
a an inducing event that canfacilitate the initial invasion

(44:22):
of those grasses or increasetheir dominance on the
landscape, which then gets intothe what's termed the annual
grass fire cycle. A lot of mapswork 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
exist 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 insagebrush 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 come up
with both Christina Stan andAli. I do want to think, start
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 Idon't want to derail you, but I
also want to put that in yourbrain to start thinking so

Matt Brooks (45:48):
So I can complicate it in segue. How about that?

Megan Kay (45:51):
Sounds good.

Matt Brooks (45:53):
So the my only points on the complication is
that the discussion here in theGreat Basin with sagebrush has
been about how different speciesvary in general, in terms of
their resilience to fire, solike, sort of like their
evolutionary history with fire,and their ability to to persist
in a landscape that also hasfire, so there can be variations

(46:15):
also within those species, localecotypes. 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 in the valleys, it's
creosote and saltbush and Mojaveand the islands and the

(46:36):
mountains are climatically andvegetation wise, these little
species compositions that makethem Great Basin. And so
understanding how those species,how those how, how a great how a
big sage brush in the Mojave,how is it that has them the same
resilience as a big sagebrushthat's in a flat in in the Great

(46:58):
Basin. And so we, we rely a loton information from the Great
Basin to infer what's going onthe high in the Mojave but
really that's a big questionthat sort of remains, but the
conversation is kind of goingmore towards sort of fire
ecology. And so I'll steer,steer you back to what you were
talking about, wanting us to goand that is, how are things have

(47:18):
changed. So, I had mentionedabout how the fire frequency in
the Mount Irish area. Theinference is that the the
history of of indigenous burningwas was changed when the
ranchers came. One of the otherthings that we found lower
elevations there's actual youstart getting into evidence of

(47:39):
fire through historicaldocuments so early part of the
1900s especially into the wellinto the 20s, 30s and 40s,
there's agency documents in theMojave that exists. A lot of
them from Lincoln County,Nevada, which is ecotone between
the Great Basin and the Mojave,where there's a lot of ranching
going on. That with that give usan idea about how that had

(48:03):
changed things. So the land useof livestock grazing. So in the
around the 30, late 30s and 40s,there's 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

(48:25):
rainfall, and then in the late30s, early 40s, there are some
really high rainfall years. Sothe observe, my guess is, is
that the observation by theranchers was, hey, there's a
bunch of Indian rice grass,grama grass that burning them,
that lives in between theseblack brush. If we could burn
the black brush, the perennialgrass would come up, we'd have
more forage for the livestock.
And so they ended up burning alot. And there was a lot of

(48:46):
records from that that wouldthat are still in existence. I
actually have gotten from someof the Caliente Field Office in
Southern Nevada, being one ofthem, and there were photographs
they took. So there's someactually really great evidence
from records, photographs,journals and reports that
indicates that there was a fairamount of burning going on at

(49:08):
that time. From the standpointof black brush, we now consider
black brush something thatdoesn't survive well with fire,
and so it's interesting to kindof think about. There's a lot of
black brush in Southern Nevadatoday. If there was all that
burning going on, was there alot more, if it hasn't
recovered, but some of the oldphotographs we've used, we've

(49:29):
revisited these photos from the30s and 40s, and found black
brush in past places that showcompletely stand, replacing
black brush slicked off justdirt a year after the fires. And
so there's this is another sortof evidence of more, how, how
the settlement had changed,started to change fire regime.

(49:50):
And some of the evidence, we usephotographic evidence to figure
out, maybe how resilient thingslike even black brush might be.
And you go in to think aboutmore, more you. Know 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

(50:10):
found black brush resproutingand the interface with the
Sierra Nevada Mountains in thefar western Mojave and and it's
on the edge, again, of adifferent fire regime. And so
when you find vegetation types,whether it's Great Basin
sagebrush, or whether it's bigsagebrush, or whether it's it's
black brush, or whatever that'sfar ranging, at its interface
with other vegetation types thatburn more frequently, there's a

(50:34):
strong likelihood that the thatthat species has a different
resilience than it does in otherareas, because it's experienced
a different historical fireregime than maybe it occurring
in the center of its range. Andso that's a 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
those photos, some of thosephotos from 40s show landscapes
covered in red brome andcheatgrass in the 40s, after
they burn black brush, andthat's an elevation zone today
where we find the brome species.

(51:18):
Both those species to be mostprevalent, and the biggest fire
contributor is really in blackbrush and the upper elevation,
the creosote bush. So it's kindof fascinating that back there,
this, this, there was the thingthat we think more of, is
something that's evolved sincethe 70s, at least in the Mojave
with with red brome. Photoevidence suggests that that it

(51:40):
was very prevalent post fireback during that period of time,
and it only is was recorded redbrome, anyways from North
America in late 1800s sorelatively quickly, it got to a
point where it can cover alandscape in Southern Nevada
after black brush burn as earlyas the 40s.

Megan Kay (51:59):
Was, I mean, did people consider it? I mean, it
wasn't that much of a hazard,I'm sure. Like, people wanted
those grasses for forage foranimals and things like that.

Matt Brooks (52:09):
Well, it's more of the perennial grasses that that
that have higher nutritionalpoaching content, also the
annual grasses, when they dryout, they're high silica.
They're not as palatable.
They're definitely palatable,but, but what's interesting is
that the series of reports, itshows how and these were, these
were actually from a predecessorof Intermountain research
station. I forget what it was.

(52:31):
It's called. There's somethingin Las Vegas grazing district,
or something Stan. You probablyknow more about this history
than I do, but there was, like,about Ralph Holmgren was one of
them, one of the guys that wason this, and I think he's from
the Salt Lake area, if Iremember correctly. But at any
rate, there was about five orsix authors on these, on these
reports, and one of them put anaddendum to a report stating

(52:56):
that that, yeah, this did gogood. You know, I agree with
everybody else that the burningdid reduce shrub layers quite a
bit, and and a cover, but I'mconcerned about this red brome
being something that mightpromote really frequent fires.
Nobody, nobody told him in anypublications or education that
that was it was this thingcalled this grass fire cycle

(53:19):
with annual grasses from theMediterranean region and but it
was really interesting that thathe saw his perception of how
much fuel there was fine fuel acouple years after fire on the
landscape was was significantenough for him to put in
writing.

Megan Kay (53:34):
And what year was that?

Matt Brooks (53:38):
It was, the this report was probably the late
40s. The report was about thesefield visits. So yeah, there's
some, just by chance that was,you know, records that have not
been thrown out over the yearsfrom agency offices that provide
a really, I think, fascinatinginsight into what was going on
in the management side of thingsduring that period of time. And

(54:00):
it's not. This is not typicalMojave. This is more of an
ecotone region between theMojave and 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 brome cattle don't care for
it. Sheep are the ones that inspringtime only, will consume
the cheatgrass and maybe thebrome. I don't know as much
about that, but I know, but I'mnot sure that sheep were

(54:30):
introduced until later, so I'mnot sure that that it was ever
considered an advantageous thingto have on the landscape.

Stanley Kitchen (54:39):
Let me add a little bit of insight I have
available a you know, in 1992 wedid a symposium, basically as a
annual grass symposium in theGreat Basin. And I thought that
was we were like cutting edge orsomething, until I ran across
proceedings of a symposium thatwas. In the late 50s, and it was

(55:01):
called the cheatgrass symposium.
And what have we learned so farabout cheatgrass? Is what it was
about. And of course, it was avery different perspective then
you think, think late 50s, early60s, right? I can't remember the
exact year of it, but many ofthe papers that were presented
in that symposium talked aboutcheatgrass in a favorable way
that it on that they talkedabout the biomass available

(55:23):
production compared to somesystems when cheatgrass is not
present, sheep came into someportions of the Great Basin,
certainly in the Utah portion ineastern Nevada as early as the
1870s and so that been aroundfor a while. Cows, certainly a

(55:46):
little bit longer than thansheep, but both of them quite
for quite a long period of time,and they saw cheatgrass as a
valuable forage that was notalways dependable. It's a good
way to put it, I think, and andsomewhat short lived, but still,
still portrayed, not now. Thisis not all of the presentations,
but, but many of thepresentations portrayed it as as

(56:09):
something, perhaps morefavorable 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 sage grass, sage brush, and
sage brush was considered partof the enemy that we needed to

(56:31):
get rid of so we could grow moregrass. And so that opened my
eyes up a little bit in terms ofhow long people have been
looking at at cheatgrass andtrying to decide what to do with
it, and I'm not sure yet, in myown mind, how much progress
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,
it's fuel limited. So, forexample, what I just described
about the burning by in SouthernNevada during the 40s, 30s and
40s. That was at a period theend of a period of a multi year,

(57:12):
multi decadal period of drought,from about 1900 to not drought,
higher rainfall, 1900 to about40. From now 1940 to 75 it was a
period of very low rainfall inthe Mojave, often referred to as
the mid century drought. And I,I don't think I'm able to find a
single record of fire from theMojave during that time. And

(57:33):
then started in 76 through,especially 2006 period of higher
rainfall some El Nino years andand it was almost like the the
at that period of time, the firethe fire managers were just
starting to say, hey, there'sfires. Never happened before,
and it's because fire oftentimesdon't have the historical
perspective. They just have howlong they've been in the field

(57:57):
office, and that perspective andand so fire increased during
that period of time, really hasbeen was coincident with
increased increased rainfall.
Interestingly, when you talkabout bromus, there's a series
of, Nevada Test Site with JaniceBeatly from UCLA produced a lot
of the great information on onan annual annual plants and
plant communities in southernNevada, starting in the 60s. And

(58:20):
the Nevada Test Site was a placewhere she was contracted do
surveys. And there's apublication that one of the
people that worked with her,Richard Hunter, wrote, and he
basically showed in the recordsof the Janice Beatly
recordsstarting in the 60s upthrough, I think it was 79 this
exponential increase in redbrome density. And his

(58:42):
publication was, and this is redbrome invading the test site,
starting in the 60s. Well, Ijust told you that there was
public there's pictures inSouthern Nevada of it covering a
post fire landscape from the40s. And his perspective was
coming out of the mid centurydrought, right? And so red brome
was at an area at a level whereyou could identify swaths of in

(59:05):
in black and white photographs.
And you know somebody, it wasenough there for somebody to
make a note of it in a reportduring the 40s. And yet, the
perception was that it was justinvading the Nevada. Southern
Nevada in the 60s, more thanlikely, was knocked back during
their mid century drought. So sosome interesting sort of

(59:29):
historical perspectives aboutlike Stan was talking about the
perspective of cheatgrass thenand now, we have to kind of
think about the perspective of,in this case, red brome on the
landscape, but also theperspective of fire on the
landscape based on historicalcontext. And oftentimes I try
to, I try to describe, like, thequestion being, you know, where

(59:52):
and when is fire of use, orcould be considered to have
positive resource benefits inthe Mojave. And I always have to
say it's in the context of thehistorical context and and then,
of course, what your resourcebenefit definitions are. But
really, I think the underlyingthing about this, the whole
theme of this podcast, beinghistory of fire, is, how does it

(01:00:15):
help us manage today? How doesit make help us make decisions
today? Given the history of fireand what we know about it, how
does it help us make managementdecisions today and all these
different things we've beentalking about all contribute 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. Are
other tools, including doingnothing, but there's
consequences the use of all ofthe tools. So we need to use
those tools as wisely as we canand keep us full of toolbox as
we as possible. So we have lotsof options that we can deal

(01:00:55):
with, learn from the use ofthose tools and use them as
wisely as possible in a changingand sometimes unpredictable
future that we have in front ofus. We've heard a few times
today the idea of fires both canbe good or bad, and I would go
back to a quote the way Istarted. This was from Bob Keen.

(01:01:15):
He said, fire is neither goodnor bad. Fire is an important
ecological process that canproduce variable effects. The
value of these effects must beinterpreted in the context of
human desires and needs. Sothere's this interaction of fire
is just a process. It'ssomething that happens. It will

(01:01:36):
always happen, as long asthere's fuels available and
there's any ignition shortsource and enough oxygen in the
atmosphere, and we can look at alandscape and say, Is it better
that we use fire in the timingthat we would maybe want to
apply it on this particularlandscape, or some other

(01:01:57):
disturbance process that wouldget it get an ecological outcome
that's preferable, or we're justgoing to let fire happen on its
terms. Sometimes, that's underthe most severe fire climate,
think California the last fewyears and and we just, we just
get out of the way and let andthen try and clean up the mess

(01:02:19):
afterwards. That's where firehas a place, because we can
decide that, or that's whereprescribed fire has a place. We
can decide when and where andhow it's applied, if we just
back away and don't use it atall and wait for natural fire to
occur. Sometimes it's in thewrong time, the wrong place, the
wrong circumstances, and theresults 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 vary 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, orcompeting 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 and
management concepts is just thatit'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
mind.

Christina Restaino (01:04:58):
Often changes more. More rapidly than
the planning processes and lawsallow us. 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 at, youknow, being out in the field and
see these swaths from just a fewdecades ago of aerial
herbiciding of huge sagebrushstands across huge landscapes.
And when I was working there,probably 50% of our annual

(01:05:32):
budget went into sagebrushrestoration, replanting and all
of that. And it's just, it's,it's a little bit frustrating,
kind of how quickly the pendulumswings back and forth. But I
think that, you know, like Isaid, I think that missing from
a lot of those conversations isjust really an open discussion

(01:05:54):
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 (01:06:07):
Thank you for listening to the Living with
Fire Podcast. You can find morestories about wildfire and other
resources at livingwithfire.comthe Living with Fire Program is
funded by the University ofNevada, Reno Extension Nevada

(01:06:28):
Division of Forestry, Bureau ofLand Management and the United
States Forest Service.