Dr. Lauren Stachowiak
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laurenstacho.bsky.social
Dr. Lauren Stachowiak
@laurenstacho.bsky.social
2.2K followers 300 following 99 posts
(they/them) Assoc Prof of Geography at Eastern Washington University | GIS, fire history, and teaching are my jam! Follow along on Instagram too @DendroGIS 🌲🔥🗺️🖖
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View of Lake Michigan from the Oak Leaf Trail on the south side of Milwaukee.
Blue water stacked under bright blue skies. Almost no clouds except far off at the horizon in the distance. A few choppy waves can be seen along the water surface.
August 29, 2025 at 1:15 PM
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I’m teaching a GIS course Fall 2025 on wildfire activity mapping. This class will be offered through the Prof and Continuing Edu program at Eastern Washington University and you don’t need to be an EWU student to enroll! Email or DM with questions or if you’d like the syllabus!
A flyer describing a course offering. Text reads “GEOS 305 Wildfire Activity Mapping Fall 2025. An introduction to historical and active wildfire mapping. Covers various wildfire, data sources, methods for mapping historical, active fires, and limitations of current GIS workflows in the field.” If you are an EWU student then you enroll based on the course schedule, but non-EWU students complete asynchronously.
August 14, 2025 at 5:59 PM
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Was on the Olympic peninsula last week for some fieldwork and took some time for exploring Rialto Beach and areas in the Quinault Rainforest.
Beach view at sunset. Sea stacks visible way out in the water and low cloud base makes the sun wedged between the horizon and clouds with bright orange hues. Sea stacks at sunrise. Trees are growing on top and the waves have cut a curved arc around them. Driftwood seen in the foreground. A tree growing out of a fallen old growth tree. The roots of the younger tree are exposed and visible all along the trunk. Lush vegetation and blue hydrangea flowers.
August 7, 2025 at 2:59 AM
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Interested in fire history, GIS, and community science? My lab presented at WAGISA in Tacoma last month on our work at Riverside State Park using GIS as both a teacher and a tool for improving wildfire resiliency in communities and restoring natural fire regimes. Check out the slides below! 👇
A cover photo of a PowerPoint slide. There is a view of what’s left post extra high intensity fire in south central Oregon. There are black text boxes on the top and bottom of the slide that introduce the top of fire history and GIS and list the presenters.
July 20, 2025 at 7:17 PM
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I am a sucker for historical markers. I will pull over at ever single one. I have a goal to one day be involved in making one about fire or tree rings or GIS. 😅🤞
A Hwy historical marker sign that describes the connections between lodgepole pine forests and fire. This marker is for a loop trail that is show on the map and has a drawing of what the tree and pine cone look like to the left of the marker. The marker is stamped with the USFS badge and Nez Perce - Clearwater National Forest designation.
July 19, 2025 at 5:30 PM
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Lochsa River in Idaho along the Nez Perce Trail.
A lush green forest and shallow river that meanders through the frame through a mountain valley. Sunshine brightens the slopes in the background and treetops on the right, the foreground is in shade. Bright blue cloudless sky.
July 15, 2025 at 5:26 AM
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Now that’s a u shaped valley!
A glacially carved valley in the North Cascades. Green trees in foreground and slope, rocky cliffs, puffy white clouds and bright blue skies. A picturesque view!
June 26, 2025 at 6:42 PM
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Here I am standing next to it while giving the mini lecture. It was a tall one! 🤩🔥🌲
May 23, 2025 at 2:43 PM
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From the central cascades in WA, here’s my #FireScarFriday, a beautiful example of fire suppression. I’m holding the outermost curl in my hand, and pointing to earlier scars that are just a few years apart! It also appears to be a CMT with old cut marks along the face. A beauty!
A catface showing both fire evidence and CMT
May 23, 2025 at 2:41 PM
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For #FireScarFriday is a sample from WA state. A unique remnant with approx 12 scars! I added in red lines so you can see where the scars are. This piece was sawed off the top of a stump that was cut long ago. I love how the scars and pith were preserved but not much else haha! 🌲🔥❤️
A tree cookie sawed off the top of a stump and laying on the ground. There is duff laying around the sample and disturbed soil where I had to dig out a bit of the stump. Red curved lines mark where the fire scars are located and the outermost curls are pairs from either side of an old catface.
May 2, 2025 at 3:38 PM
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Sunset last night between two lone surviving pines from a past high intensity fire. This area of Riverside SP has so much fire history. ❤️🔥🌲
A person wearing green sunglasses standing along a trail at sunset. There are two pines in the distance.
April 23, 2025 at 6:23 PM
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A few students and I from the field last Friday. Gorgeous weather and a great crew mapping fire-scarred ponderosa pine.
A group of people standing around a pine tree posing for a picture. Most are standing but two are kneeling. The tree has a distinctive burn scar near the base that forms a triangle of black charcoal, which is part of what’s known as a catface, or evidence of past fire activity.
March 10, 2025 at 6:00 AM
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Frothy chocolate milk flowing down the Spokane this week. Taken at the Devil’s Toenail pullout in Riverside State Park. Can’t remember a time I’ve seen the river this laden with sediment. 👀
February 27, 2025 at 6:21 AM
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A throwback #FireScarFriday to this special catface I visited last fall in the redwoods. It had a short informational trail with some cool diagrams of tree rings and scar evidence. Science in the woods is 🔥🔥🔥
A person standing in a giant catface hollowed out at the base of a redwood tree. The person is approximately five and half feet tall and has their arms spread wide and cannot touch the sides now anywhere near the top which is out of frame. Green trees and ferns in the background. Close up of an educational sign in the woods showing fire scars in tree rings. An educational sign in the woods showing how trees form rings per year.
February 22, 2025 at 4:31 AM
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For #FireScarFriday here’s a beaut that’s now a remnant snag. Approx 12 scars, which is incredible for this area, and with clear periodicity in their occurrence, indicating frequent low-intensity fire was the norm for this area. Found in Riverside State Park.
A dead tree with a catface of burnt wood at the base. Much younger and smaller trees filling in around. A full frame shot of the catface showing a flame like pattern to the shape. Multiple scars indicating frequent fire in the area long ago. An upclose shot of the scars. Approximately 12 scars are visible and with a clear, regular periodicity to their occurrence. No “curl” is seen which would indicates fire suppression, the tree died before suppression took effect, which is wicked cool to find.
February 14, 2025 at 5:05 PM
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Missed #TreeRingTuesday so here’s a belated entry. This is a jack pine collected from the Ridgeway Pine Relicts in the Driftless Area of Wisconsin. I love the color changes in the latewood and the ring formations. Some TRD clustered around the shift which is interesting.
A scope view of tree rings. Left side has lighter latewood than the right on the right side.
February 12, 2025 at 4:08 PM
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The new phone books are here!
The new phone books are here!
A picture of a a person holding a box of business cards. The cards are for Lauren Stachowiak, PhD. This person has gotten new cards that say Associate Professor making it official (hahah).
February 3, 2025 at 2:13 AM
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For #FireScarFriday I have a uniquely shaped catface with my dog Bodi for scale. This tree is still alive and growing in an area near the Little Spokane and Spokane confluence at Riverside SP.
A dog and a tree. The dog is a red with a blue leash. The tree is the base of a pine tree with a large catface. The catface has a twisted a double peak shape to it and is about 2m tall.
February 1, 2025 at 6:26 AM
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A late night #TreeRingTuesday drop of some Douglas-fir cores collected from a homestead in Hamilton Montana. I love all the colors on these. ❤️🌲
An up close picture of seven tree core samples. The samples have been glued to core mounts and sanded on top to reveal the tree rings. There are numerous instances of color across the cores making them display a really neat color variation.
January 29, 2025 at 9:27 AM
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Work in progress map I’m making for fun. These three trees are the largest on Earth for their species. Tree-ring data came from the Wood Database,
point data are my own collection. The interactive image cropping in Pro is being difficult today 😅😅
A map of tree locations that’s is I. Progress. It is a picture of a computer screen and the map is in an open ArcGIS Pro layout.
January 27, 2025 at 12:20 AM
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Crisp and sunny this morning. Frost made everything sparkle.
A selfie with person with their dog outside in the sun. The person is wearing a black jacket and black beanie hat with purple sunglasses. The dog has a green jacket on A picture of the shadow of a person and their dog. The dog is wearing a green jacket and carrying a toy. Gravel on the trail. An upclose picture of a log with lots of frost.
January 26, 2025 at 11:52 PM
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Take a walk among fire-scarred pines with me on Feb 15th for a fire history walk at Riverside State Park in Spokane. For #FireScarFriday, here’s one of the stops along the walk with two next to each other! This is one of the largest I’ve ever seen in the park too. 🌲🔥😎
Two fire scarred pine trees. One larger in the foreground. Both trees are only seen at the base, the tops are out of frame. Woods in the background. A person is standing inside the catface of the larger tree. They are wearing black sunglasses and a blue long sleeved shirt. The top of the catface is approximately 2 feet above the top of the head of the person standing in it. They have their left arm raised to show depth into the tree.
January 25, 2025 at 8:03 AM
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Join me Saturday, February 15th from 12-1:30pm for a fire history walk at Riverside State Park. You’ll learn how to identify evidence of past fire from trees on the landscape, and the importance of #goodfire for community wildfire resiliency. Family-friendly and all are welcome.
A flyer for an event. The top is of a picture of trees with the sun setting behind them. There is large central text that says “A fire history walk” and then main text that matches the post’s text. A Discover Pass is required for parking within the park for this event. For event questions, contact Dr. Lauren Stachowiak via email at lstachowiak@ewu.edu
January 18, 2025 at 3:15 AM
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Took a walk with my dog today to enjoy the sunshine. Always seems to help calm anxiety.❤️
A dog in a leash walking down a trail. Trees filter the sunlight and there are long shadows on the ground. The background has the distant ridge and the sky is partly cloudy.
January 12, 2025 at 3:19 AM
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A buried fire scar near the pith for this #FireScarFriday. Intensity of this past fire had to have been low for a sapling that young to have survived. This was sadly the only scar over 75+ years of growth and the tree died in a 1994 high intensity fire.
A buried fire scar very near the center (pith) of the tree.
January 10, 2025 at 9:48 AM