Fire Impacts on the Response of terrestrial Ecosystems (FIRE)

Wildfires are a natural component of the global carbon cycle, but their frequency, magnitude and severity have increased globally over the past decades, in response to climate and land use change. While the impact of fires on carbon emissions from surface vegetation combustion is well studied and quantified, much less is known about the impact of landscape burning on subsurface carbon cycle processes, and over long timescales exceeding instrumental and historical records. With FIRE, our team will follow an interdisciplinary Critical Zone-focused approach, using cave systems and cave sediments in the Western US directly located within fire-prone landscapes. This will enable us to determine carbon fluxes and transit times at the landscape scale, and to investigate long-term changes in frequency of fires and their impact on the terrestrial carbon cycle.