Bozeman Magazine

Worsening wildfires in the American West will be the topic of the next Café Scientifique, set for 6 p.m. Wednesday, April 7.

Dave McWethy, assistant professor in Montana State University’s Department of Earth Sciences, will present “The Past and Future of Wildfire in Montana: How Changes in Climate, Fuels and Human Activity are Driving Longer, More Destructive Fire Seasons.” The free, online event is hosted by MSU’s Montana INBRE program. Attendees can connect online from the Montana INBRE webpage at inbre.montana.edu.

To learn how and why wildfire patterns change over time, McWethy says it’s helpful to think of wildfire as emerging from the interplay of three factors – something researchers call the fire triangle.

“Wildfires have three main drivers, each representing a component of the fire triangle,” he said. “Those include climatic conditions, human and natural ignitions, and the type of vegetation present that can fuel a fire.

“Understanding how climate, ignitions and fuel conditions have changed over centuries and millennia can help us better understand why fire seasons in Montana have been getting worse and lend important context to events such as the Bridger Foothills Fire we saw in Bozeman last year,” he added.

During the event, McWethy will demonstrate how charcoal, pollen and other materials found in lake sediments provide a historical record of fire activity, climatic conditions and environmental change.

“Scientists can extract and examine things like centuries-old pollen buried in lake sediments, look at fire scars in tree samples and even examine glacial ice cores to piece together the climatic and vegetative history of a particular region or ecosystem,” he said. “These records show how components of the fire triangle change over time and impact fire activity.”

McWethy will conclude the event by leading a community discussion on the ways in which individuals, communities and states can better understand and adapt to increasing fire activity.

“Wildfire is a natural process that shapes our Western landscapes, and the communities in the Western U.S. that have made the biggest advances toward mitigating the negative impacts of fire have all started by acknowledging that fire is inevitable,” he said. “There is a lot that we can do to better safeguard communities from the impact of wildfires, but it all begins with accepting wildfires as an inescapable part of living in the West.”

McWethy earned his doctorate in ecology and environmental studies from MSU. His primary research interests include understanding ecosystem diversity, exploring mechanisms driving changes to Earth’s vegetation and developing a framework for understanding ecosystem vulnerability to human activity and climate change. His findings have been published in a number of journals, including Nature Sustainability, the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, Bioscience, Organic Geochemistry and Landscape Ecology. He is a member of MSU’s Paleoecology Laboratory and was featured in a recent New York Times article examining wildfires in the Western U.S.

Café Scientifique provides a relaxed setting for people to learn about current scientific topics. The concept started in England in 1998 and has spread to a handful of locations in the U.S. Following a short presentation by a scientific expert, the majority of time is reserved for conversation and questions.

Housed at MSU, Montana INBRE is an Institutional Development Award (IDeA) Program from the National Institute of General Medical Sciences division of the National Institutes of Health under grant number P20GM103474.

Contact Bill Stadwiser with Montana INBRE at 406-994-3360 or william.stadwiser@montana.edu for more information about the Café Scientifique concept or check the web at inbre.montana.edu/cafe/index.html.