In this Section:

	Background
	Project Overview
	Project Components:
	Fire History & Climate
	Fire Management & Policy
	Fire-Climate Workshops
	References
	Related Links
	Contacts

Stay Informed:
Interested in fire and climate? More information is available on the National Seasonal Assessment Workshops (NSAW).

Research and Products:
Fire Research

Project Overview

The CLIMAS fire initiative fosters research on the nature, causes, and consequences climate change and variability on fire in the southwestern United States. These include efforts to improve communication between climate scientists and land managers. These efforts help fire and land-use managers use climate forecasts and historical climate fire management in the region and improve the ability of climatologists and fire specialists to collaboratively predict fire potential before the fire season begins. CLIMAS fire-climate research builds upon prior and continuing work being carried out University of Arizona and other institutions in the Southwest, including Northern Arizona University and New Mexico State University. CLIMAS research draws upon the considerable expertise of researchers at The University of Arizona’s Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research historical and paleo-reconstruction of climate-fire connections, as well as the expertise the Desert Research Institute (Program for Climate, Ecosystem and Fire Applications) Scripps Institution of Oceanography (California Applications Program RISA) with regard climate patterns and impacts over short to very long time periods. A unique avenue of CLIMAS research currently underway is comparative analysis on institutional and decision structures and processes in wildfire management.

There are three components of CLIMAS fire research (choose a link to learn more about a component):

More information on fire is available from CLIMAS's Overview of Fire Research.