Christopher Roos
“Rose” | Prof. of Anthropology & Earth Sciences, SMU - Dallas | Pyrogeography and Geoarchaeology | partner with Indigenous communities in AZ and NM | learn from the past for modern wildfire problems
- This is a great job if you have the right skills. I am looking at you archaeometry-types. www.facebook.com/share/1PXdkz...
- Roos et al. have managed to find information where it was thought implausible…[in] this seminal publication. We have a lot of fire in our future. But then we have had a lot of fire for all of our past. It is there to learn from if we choose to look for it. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
- Many thanks to Steve Pyne @sjpyne.bsky.social for his thoughtful comments on our latest paper. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
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- Reposted by Christopher RoosA new study led by SMU fire scientist Christopher Roos reveals that Western Apache communities had far greater control over fire patterns across Arizona than scientists previously believed possible. 🧪🌎 www.smu.edu/news/researc...
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- Reposted by Christopher Roos#Wildfire season is starting weeks earlier in California (up to 2.5 months in some mountainous regions) and large fires have grown more frequent, according to a new analysis of 30 years of fire data. Hotter temperatures and dryer atmospheric conditions are responsible buff.ly/zlitNPA #ClimateSky
- Reposted by Christopher RoosWildfire activity worldwide was higher in 2023 and 2024 than in any year since monitoring began in 2001. Tropical forests are seeing particularly high rates of forest loss. Some forest systems may be approaching tipping points of ecosystem change. In PNAS: www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
- Reposted by Christopher Roos‘Unprecedented’ wildfire burns area size of Paris in southern France. www.theguardian.com/world/2025/a...
- Reposted by Christopher RoosWildfire devastation doesn't stop when the fires are out. #Climate apnews.com/article/maui...
- Reposted by Christopher Roos#ICYMI Webinar Recording Now Available: "How do Fire Managers use Information?: Developing Practical and Usable Weather and Climate Information for Southwest Wildfire Management" www.swfireconsortium.org/2025/06/10/h...
- Reposted by Christopher RoosFrom fire survivors, to people far away breathing wildfire smoke, the physiological, psychological and economic consequences of climate-fueled fires are huge, and growing. www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025...
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- Reposted by Christopher RoosFine work that both extends our knowledge of the past and has implications for today. Ndee (Western Apache) land management did a remarkable job controlling forest fires, even in drought-heavy eras like ours. It defies belief to think today's fire-torn SW has nothing to learn from those guys.
- Reposted by Christopher RoosNew paper out on the dangers of using patterns across spatial climate gradients to predict what will happen with changing climate. That includes species distribution modeling. Space-for-time substitution can be misleading in sign, not just the magnitude of effects. www.nature.com/articles/s41...
- 1/New Open Access paper in PNAS with an outstanding team of collaborators: Tree rings reveal persistent Western Apache (Ndee) fire stewardship and niche construction in the American Southwest. www.pnas.org/doi/10.1073/...
- 2/Using 649 tree-ring samples from across ~48,800 km2 of Western Apache homelands, we show that mean fire intervals were unusually short in Apacheria compared to 3,880 tree-ring samples from across Arizona and New Mexico outside of Apacheria. All samples from dry conifer forests.
- 3/And by looking at ratios of the fire return intervals of widespread vs. all fires, we were able to show that fires were overwhelmingly small compared to the rest of the region.
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View full thread6/Tree-rings reveal that these patterns persisted for centuries. We need to learn more from Indigenous knowledge and experience built over centuries to millennia to better understand our current wildfire problems and how we can get out of them.
