The Big Burns project was a multi-institution collaboration studying how climate, wildfire, and ecosystems in high-elevation forests in the Rocky Mountains changed over the past 2500 years. The project focused on understanding the causes and ecological impacts of historical variability in fire activity, explicitly comparing the past to the present. The collaboration among the University of Montana, University of Idaho, University of Wyoming, and Kansas State University was funded through a four-year grant from the NSF’s Ecosystem Studies program, which was extended to span six years with no-cost extensions. 

During the project's six-year duration (2017-2023), the societal impacts of wildfires gained heightened relevance, sparking urgent discussions from local to global scales. The Big Burns project made significant scientific contributions directly influencing these conversations. By combining paleoecological reconstructions and ecosystem modeling, the project provided context for current changes in wildfire activity, comparing them to historical variability. This approach revealed essential mechanisms and impacts of change, offering valuable insights for anticipating the future.

The Big Burns project focused on two Rocky Mountain landscapes with a history of extensive wildfires. In the Northern Rockies (Idaho and Montana), major wildfires in 1910 influenced national wildfire policy, and recent decades have seen increased burning. The Southern Rockies (Colorado and Wyoming) have also experienced significant wildfire activity, including extensive burning around 1000 years ago during the Medieval Climate Anomaly, and the extraordinary 2020 fire season.

Major findings from the Big Burns project revealed that high-elevation forests in the southern Rocky Mountains are now burning at rates surpassing those of the past 2000 years, driven by unprecedented climate conditions and accidental human ignitions. These findings gained widespread media attention and were featured in NSF's 2021 Year in Discovery summary. The study built upon almost a decade of prior work, funded by other NSF projects, providing extensive spatial coverage and detail to contextualize contemporary wildfires. 

Newly developed records of climate, wildfire, and ecosystem change in the northern Rocky Mountains underscore the sensitivity of fire activity and ecosystems to climate change over the past 4000+ years. Remarkably, these ecosystems have consistently demonstrated resilience, rebounding from repeated wildfires during this time. While high-elevation forests throughout the Rocky Mountains have historically evolved under the influence of fire, the current heightened fire activity is attributed to global warming and human activities, posing increased risks to human lives and property.

In contrast to the Southern Rockies, contemporary wildfire activity in Northern Rockies' high-elevation forests has not surpassed levels experienced over past millennia. The Big Burns project shed light on the potential impact of future burning, revealing the threshold beyond which these forests may be pushed, surpassing experiences in recent millennia.

The project achieved success on multiple fronts, including the training of one postdoc, two PhD students, two MS students, all earning degrees and publishing in the scientific literature. Notable outcomes include career progressions, with one MS student advancing to a PhD program, another securing employment with the USGS, and both PhDs pursuing postdoctoral research. PhD students each earned additional fellowships, which supplemented and expanded the scope of their graduate work. For example, PhD student Clark-Wolf expanded her work to study post-fire tree regeneration after recent wildfires, integrating contemporary and paleo ecology perspectives into her dissertation and publication record. PhD student Bartowitz earned an NSF INTERN award to work on forest carbon cycling with The Nature Conservancy. 

The project resulted in 25 publications in scientific journals. Graduate students and the postdoc played significant roles, serving as lead authors on 11 and co-authors on seven papers directly tied to the project. These 18 papers have amassed over 230 citations in scientific literature as of August 2023. Additionally, seven papers contributing invited perspectives from paleoecology to contemporary ecology garnered over 1200 citations by the same date. Project findings were disseminated to scientific audiences through presentations at numerous national and international conferences, as well as invited seminars.

Our team also shared project findings widely, reaching the public, managers, and policymakers through articles in The Washington Post, Global Change Biology, and The Conversation. We also contributed to podcasts like NSF's Discovery Files and gave public presentations to make our research more accessible beyond academia.

Finally, discoveries from the Big Burns project have been integrated into undergraduate curriculum in ecology and climate change at the University of Montana, University of Idaho, and University of Wyoming. The project supported over a dozen undergraduate students in lab and field work, and it partially supported one graduate student in environmental journalism, who embedded with the project for one field season. Several undergraduate students involved in the project have gone on to pursue graduate degrees in biological or physical sciences. 

Last Modified: 09/26/2024
Modified by: Bryan N Shuman