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Fall 2021
Wildfire management agencies are at a tipping point as wildfire disasters, particularly in western Canada increase in frequency. Climate change impacts, and competing values and assets on the landscape are challenging suppression effectiveness. Semi-structured interviews with Canadian wildfire...
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Fall 2020
Fire and insect outbreaks are the two leading natural disturbance factors affecting Canadian forests. Over the last 20 years Mountain Pine Beetle (Dendroctonous ponderosae Hopkins) has killed more than 50 percent of western Canada’s merchantable lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta) forests and spread...
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The influences of fuel moisture and diameter on pyrogenic carbon production in fine woody debris from three boreal tree species under simulated surface fire conditions.
DownloadSpring 2020
Wildland fires burn millions of hectares annually, releasing a significant amount of carbon into the atmosphere. Wildland fires also produce pyrogenic carbon – thermally-altered biomass that is highly resistant to decay – which accumulates in fire-affected ecosystems over time. Large wildfires,...
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A survey of pyrogenic carbon in Kootenay National Park burned soils, and its positive effect on the establishment of pine-fungal ectomycorrhizal symbiosis
DownloadSpring 2020
Wildfire is a natural disturbance in Rocky Mountain forest landscapes. Fire plays an important role in maintaining stand structure, woody debris consumption, and soil nutrient cycling. Fire exclusion in these ecosystems has expanded forest cover, altered stand structures, and allowed...
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Post-fire regeneration of endangered limber pine (Pinus flexilis) at the northern extent of its range
DownloadSpring 2019
Limber pine (Pinus flexilis), an ecologically important species of the montane and subalpine regions of western Canada and the United States, is endangered in Alberta. Limber pine is thought to regenerate following fire, due to its relationship with a bird, the Clark’s nutcracker (Nucifraga...
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Long Term Effects of Wildfire on Permafrost Stability and Carbon Cycling in Northern Peatlands
DownloadFall 2017
Changing fire dynamics and increasing global temperatures are causing changes to the fire regime and permafrost stability in the Arctic. Models have separately predicted the widespread thawing of permafrost and increasing magnitude and intensity of wildfires over the next century. However, while...
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Spring 2017
This thesis studied the efficacy of sprinklers for fuel hazard reduction to prevent wildfires. Fire management’s response capacity to suppress wildfires is increasingly becoming overwhelmed because of climate change and its effects on fire regimes. Sprinkler-watering can change fuel moisture...
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Fall 2016
Although wildland fires are a beneficial ecosystem process, they can also cause destruction to human-built structures and infrastructure, as evidenced by disasters such as the Fort McMurray fire in 2016 and the Slave Lake fires in 2011. This type of destruction occurs in the “wildland-urban...
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Fall 2016
Humans are the major cause of forest fires in the spring in Alberta, and have resulted in major property damage in both the Flat Top Complex fires in 2011 and the Fort McMurray fire in 2016. Fire occurrence prediction (FOP) models can help predict when and where fires can be expected in order to...
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Spring 2016
After decades of recent fire exclusion in southern Alberta, Canada, forests are progressively aging and landscape mosaics are departing from their historical conditions. A large-scale fire history study spanning three natural subregions: Subalpine, Montane and Upper Foothills, was undertaken to...