Today we visited our research site in a CALFIRE demonstration forest, where the forest has been actively managed for uneven aged structure. See below, site of a successful prescribed burn done in June!

The first time I did field work in Big Basin was 14 years ago. I haven’t had any projects there since 2019, and then in 2020 the forest burned at high severity in the CZU fire. Today as part of a new project on management, fire, and carbon in redwood forests, I got to see big basin post-fire.

So grateful for the amazing members of the Francis lab, @colinmast.bsky.social @lilianvallet.bsky.social, Ashley Zwick and Subham Banerjee (not pictured here)! So much creativity, quantitative thinking, and geospatial fire science data wizardry. Working with these folks is the best.

3/4 A key result was the finding that large areas of forest in the western US are potentially at risk of tree mortality by fir engraver and, to a lesser extent, western pine beetle.

2/4 Unsurprisingly, host basal area had a positive effect on probability of mortality for all eight bark beetle species we studied.

Ponderosa pine woodlands make me feel like the future is worth fighting for

First field work trip for the Francis lab! @colinmast.bsky.social and Subham Banerjee collecting training data in coastal redwood forests. We're working on developing methods to classify forest types from satellite observations to observe changes over time and in response to disturbances!

Had an awesome time visiting UCSB EEMB yesterday and meeting so many folks doing great work! Thank you to the LEAF lab for hosting me!