Last fall, the Mullen fire west of Laramie raged for the better part of two months, burning more than 176,000 acres and 70 structures in Carbon and Albany counties, and in Jackson County, Colo.
Last fall, the Mullen fire west of Laramie raged for the better part of two months, burning more than 176,000 acres and 70 structures in Carbon and Albany counties, and in Jackson County, Colo.
Unfortunately, this scenario was typical during the intense 2020 fire season in the Rocky Mountain region, an area of Colorado and southern Wyoming where high-elevation forests are burning more than at any point in the past 2,000 years, according to a study in which a University of Wyoming faculty member was instrumental.
“Global warming is causing larger fires in Rocky Mountain forests than have burned for thousands of years,” says Bryan Shuman, a professor in the UW Department of Geology and Geophysics. “The last time anything similar may have occurred was during a warm portion of the medieval era.”
Shuman was the main co-author of a paper, titled “Rocky Mountain Subalpine Forests Now Burning More Than Any Time in Recent Millennia,” that was published today (June 14) in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS). The journal is one of the world’s most prestigious multidisciplinary scientific serials, with coverage spanning the biological, physical and social sciences.
Read more at: University of Wyoming
The Mullen fire looms near a property in Centennial last fall. Bryan Shuman, a professor in UW’s Department of Geology and Geophysics, was a main co-author of a paper, titled “Rocky Mountain Subalpine Forests Now Burning More Than Any Time in Recent Millennia,” that was published in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences today (June 14). The paper concluded that high-elevation forests in the Rocky Mountain region, an area of Colorado and southern Wyoming, are burning more than at any point in the past 2,000 years. (Photo Credit: Jason Shogren Photo)
