Current Research

• Historical fire regimes in mixed-conifer forests of Central Oregon
• Historical fire regimes in Utah
• Historical fire regimes in mixed-conifer forests of the Flathead Valley, Montana
• Condition of live, fire-scarred ponderosa pine trees 21 years after removing fire-scarred partial cross sections
  
  
  
  

Research Interests

Heyerdahl's research focuses on inferring the drivers of spatial and temporal variation in fire regimes over the past several centuries using tree rings and modern fire records. These drivers include climate, forest type, topography, and land use.

Past Research

• Spatial and temporal varation of historical fires in the Blue Mountains, Oregon
• Climate drivers of fire in the Northern Rockies: Past, present and future
• Historical mixed-severity fire regimes in British Columbia, Canada
• Climatic and human influences on historical fire regimes of Mexico
• Fire history of Interior West Sagebrush Woodlands

Why This Research is Important

This research impacts both forest management and our understanding of basic forest and fire ecology. The National Fire Plan, the Federal Wildland Fire Management Policy, and the Forest Service's Cohesive Strategy clearly identify the need to restore frequent-fire forests by treating fuel. Knowledge of past fire regimes, how and why they varied across space, and how they affected forest structure and composition provides a basis for prescribing fuel treatments that mimic the effects of past fires, while knowledge of the climate forcing of extreme fire years provides a basis for scheduling such treatments. Spatially explicit reconstructions of fire regimes can be used to identify fundamental properties of those regimes, such as the scaling properties of fire frequency. Knowledge about the drivers of spatial and temporal variation in historical fire regimes is used by other scientists to parameterize, and validate simulation models, for example to predict the effects of climate change on future fire regimes. Anticipating the effects of climate change on future fire requires that we understand the effects of climate variation on past fires using tree rings and also that we bridge the past and the present by identifying the climate drivers of 20th-century fires from written archival records.

Education

• Oregon State University, Corvallis, OR, B.S. Geology 1985
• University of Washington, M.S. Atmospheric Sciences 1991
• University of Washington, Ph.D. Forestry 1997

Professional Organizations

• Association for Fire Ecology, Member (2006 - Current)
• Ecological Society of America, Member (1995 - Current)
• Tree-Ring Society, Lifetime Member (1991 - Current)

Featured Publications & Products

• Heyerdahl, Emily K.; Morgan, Penelope; Riser, James P., II. 2008. Multi-season climate synchronized historical fires in dry forests (1650-1900), Northern Rockies, USA.
• Morgan, Penelope; Heyerdahl, Emily K.; Gibson, Carly E. 2008. Multi-season climate synchronized forest fires throughout the 20th century, Northern Rockies, USA.
• Miller, Richard F.; Heyerdahl, Emily K. 2008. Fine-scale variation of historical fire regimes in sagebrush-steppe and juniper woodland: An example from California, USA.
• Heyerdahl, Emily K.; Loehman, Rachel A.; Falk, Donald A. 2014. Mixed-severity fire in lodgepole-dominated forests: Are historical regimes sustainable on Oregon's Pumice Plateau, USA.
• Flower, A.; Gavin, D. G.; Heyerdahl, E. K.; Parsons, R. A.; Cohn, G. M. 2014. Drought-triggered western spruce budworm outbreaks in the Interior Pacific Northwest: A multi-century dendrochronological record.
• Heyerdahl, Emily K.; Lertzman, Ken; Wong, Carmen M. 2012. Mixed-severity fire regimes in dry forests of southern interior British Columbia, Canada.
• Falk, Donald A.; Heyerdahl, Emily K.; Brown, Peter M.; Farris, Calvin; Fule, Peter Z.; McKenzie, Donald; Swetnam, Thomas W.; Taylor, Alan H.; Van Horne, Megan L. 2011. Multi-scale controls of historical forest-fire regimes: new insights from fire-scar networks.
• Heyerdahl, Emily K.; McKenzie, Donald; Daniels, Lori D.; Hessl, Amy E.; Littell, Jeremy S.; Mantua, Nathan J. 2008. Climate drivers of regionally synchronous fires in the inland northwest (1651-1900).
• Heyerdahl, Emily K.; Alvarado, Ernesto. 2003. Influence of climate and land use on historical surface fires in pine-oak forests, Sierra Madre Occidental, Mexico.
• Dillon, Gregory K.; Holden, Zachery A.; Morgan, Penelope; Crimmins, Michael A.; Heyerdahl, Emily K.; Luce, Charles H. 2011. Both topography and climate affected forest and woodland burn severity in two regions of the western US, 1984 to 2006.

Publications

• Heyerdahl, Emily K.; Loehman, Rachel A.; Falk, Donald A. 2019. A multi-century history of fire regimes along a transect of mixed-conifer forests in central Oregon, U.S.A.
• Harley, Grant L.; Baisan, Christopher H.; Brown, Peter M.; Falk, Donald A.; Flatley, William T.; Grissino-Mayer, Henri D.; Hessl, Amy; Heyerdahl, Emily K.; Kaye, Margot W.; Lafon, Charles W.; Margolis, Ellis Q.; Maxwell, R. Stockton; Naito, Adam T.; Platt, William J.; Rother, Monica T.; Saladyga, Thomas; Sherriff, Rosemary L.; Stachowiak, Lauren A.; Stambaugh, Michael C.; Sutherland, Elaine Kennedy; Taylor, Alan H. 2018. Advancing dendrochronological studies of fire in the United States.
• Merschel, Andrew G.; Heyerdahl, Emily K.; Spies, Thomas A.; Loehman, Rachel A. 2018. Influence of landscape structure, topography, and forest type on spatial variation in historical fire regimes, Central Oregon, USA.
• Heyerdahl, Emily K.; McKay, Steven J. 2017. Condition of live fire-scarred ponderosa pine twenty-one years after removing partial cross-sections.
• Hood, Sharon; Sala, Anna; Heyerdahl, Emily K.; Boutin, Marion. 2015. Low-severity fire increases tree defense against bark beetle attacks.
• Merschel, Andrew G.; Spies, Thomas A.; Heyerdahl, Emily K. 2014. Mixed-conifer forests of central Oregon: Effects of logging and fire exclusion vary with environment.
• Morgan, Penelope; Heyerdahl, Emily K.; Miller, Carol; Wilson, Aaron M.; Gibson, Carly E. 2014. Northern Rockies pyrogeography: An example of fire atlas utility.
• Cohn, Gregory M.; Parsons, Russell A.; Heyerdahl, Emily K.; Gavin, Daniel G.; Flower, Aquila. 2014. Simulated western spruce budworm defoliation reduces torching and crowning potential: A sensitivity analysis using a physics-based fire model.
• Flower, Aquila; Gavin, Daniel G.; Heyerdahl, Emily K.; Parsons, Russell A.; Cohn, Gregory M. 2014. Western spruce budworm outbreaks did not increase fire risk over the last three centuries: A dendrochronological analysis of inter-disturbance synergism.
• Matonis, Megan; Luce, Charles; Holden, Zack; Morgan, Penny; Heyerdahl, Emily. 2013. Science You Can Use Bulletin: Our forests in the water balance.
• Heyerdahl, Emily K.; Brown, Peter M.; Kitchen, Stanley G.; Weber, Marc H. 2011. Multicentury fire and forest histories at 19 sites in Utah and eastern Nevada.
• Cassell, Brooke A.; Alvarado, Ernesto; Heyerdahl, Emily; Perez-Salicrup, Diego; Jardel-Pelaez, Enrique. 2010. Climate change and fire regimes in the Sierra de Manantlan, Mexico.
• Falk, Donald A.; Heyerdahl, E. K.; Brown, P. M.; Swetnam, T. W.; Sutherland, E. K.; Gedalof, Z.; Yocom, L.; Brown, T. J. 2010. Fire and climate variation in western North America from fire-scar and tree-ring networks.
• Brown, Peter M.; Heyerdahl, Emily K.; Kitchen, Stanley G.; Weber, Marc H. 2008. Climate effects on historical fires (1630-1900) in Utah.
• Heyerdahl, Emily K.; McKay, Steven J. 2008. Condition of live fire-scarred ponderosa pine eleven years after removing partial cross-sections.
• Heyerdahl, Emily K.; Morgan, Penelope; Riser, James P., II. 2008. Crossdated fire histories (1650-1900) from ponderosa pine-dominated forests of Idaho and western Montana.
• Parsons, Russell A.; Heyerdahl, Emily K.; Keane, Robert E.; Dorner, Brigitte; Fall, Joseph. 2007. Assessing accuracy of point fire intervals across landscapes with simulation modelling.
• Shapiro-Miller, Lauren B.; Heyerdahl, Emily K.; Morgan, Penelope. 2007. Comparison of fire scars, fire atlases, and satellite data in the northwestern United States.
• Kitzberger, Thomas; Brown, Peter M.; Heyerdahl, Emily K.; Swetnam, Thomas W.; Veblen, Thomas T. 2007. Contingent Pacific-Atlantic Ocean influence on multicentury wildfire synchrony over western North America.
• Heyerdahl, Emily K.; Lertzman, Ken; Karpuk, Stephen. 2007. Local-scale controls of a low-severity fire regime (1750-1950), southern British Columbia, Canada.
• Gayton, Don V.; Weber, Marc H.; Harrington, Mick; Heyerdahl, Emily K.; Sutherland, Elaine K.; Brett, Bob; Hall, Cindy; Hartman, Micahel; Peterson, Liesl; Merrel, Carolynne. 2006. Fire history of a western Montana ponderosa pine grassland: A pilot study.
• Heyerdahl, Emily K.; Miller, Richard F.; Parsons, Russell A. 2006. History of fire and Douglas-fir establishment in a savanna and sagebrush-grassland mosaic, southwestern Montana, USA.
• Heyerdahl, Emily K.; McKay, Steven J. 2001. Condition of live fire-scarred ponderosa pine trees six years after removing partial cross sections.