For a researcher who studies wildfire, University of Montana graduate student Kyra Clark-Wolf couldn’t have had better timing.
For a researcher who studies wildfire, University of Montana graduate student Kyra Clark-Wolf couldn’t have had better timing.
Clark-Wolf arrived in Missoula to start her graduate studies on the impacts of wildfires on forests at the W.A. Franke College of Forestry & Conservation on July 4, 2017. Eleven days later, a lightning strike sparked the Lolo Peak Fire just south of the city, burning nearly 54,000 acres and leaving lasting and indelible images among Missoulians of dense smoke and flames visible from town.
The impacts of that fire on the forest, as well as the Sunrise Fire burning at the same time west of Missoula, would go on to be central to Clark-Wolf’s doctoral work. Her findings are shared in two papers, the second recently published in Forest Ecology and Management, a leading journal in her field.
“I was curious once the smoke cleared up what was going on in the forest and what the fires left behind,” she said, “and how the effects of ongoing climate change could change forest recovery.”
Read more at The University of Montana
Image: UM graduate student Kyra Clark-Wolf has published two research papers on tree regeneration following wildfires. (Credit: The University of Montana)
