When Wildfire Hits Closer to Home
As a changing climate raises new questions about wildfire risk in the Adirondacks, St. Lawrence students, faculty, and alumni are helping communities get ready for some harsh new realities.
Last spring, St. Lawrence student Jordanna Samburgh spent a semester studying a threat that might seem unlikely to someone who grew up, as she did, in the Adirondack Park region: wildfires.
As part of Diane Husic’s project-based Adirondack Fire Futures course, Samburgh and her classmates interviewed regional stakeholders about their perceptions of wildfire risk and how prepared—or unprepared—Adirondack communities are to respond. Then, this summer, the research became real. While working in Minnesota, Samburgh had to evacuate the Boundary Waters region because of wildfires.
For Husic, the Richard ’64 and Gail Stradling Executive Director of the Center for the Environment of St. Lawrence University’s Center for the Environment, Samburgh’s experience brought home the questions she and a growing network of St. Lawrence students, faculty, and alumni are exploring: Could wildfire become a greater threat in a region where most people rarely think about fire? And if so, how should Adirondack communities prepare?
“Most people don’t think of fire in the Adirondacks,” Husic told North Country Public Radio during an on air interview this summer. “It’s considered to be a type of forest that doesn’t likely burn. And the region has a lot of water.”
But a changing climate is raising new questions about the future of fires in the region. Changing weather patterns, periods of drought, reduced snowpack, insect- and disease-related tree loss, and development alongside wild lands could all affect wildfire risk in the Adirondacks. How those factors might combine—and how communities should prepare—is something researchers are still working to understand.
From Questions to Collaboration
Those questions brought researchers, land managers, community leaders, fire practitioners, and students together this summer for the Adirondack Fire Futures Symposium, a three-day gathering at Clarkson University supported by the National Science Foundation and organized through Clarkson with regional collaborators. Husic served on the planning committee and participated in a roundtable focused on collaboration and Adirondack fire futures.
The gathering also showcased the breadth of Laurentian engagement with the issue, from students contributing original research to alumni bringing expertise in wildfire, forest health, and climate resilience.
Lydia Horne ’13, now a postdoctoral researcher at the University of Maine, shared research on barriers to prescribed fire, which can help reduce the risk of wildfires and promote forest health. Urban ecologist Polly Weigand ’98 contributed her expertise in strengthening prescribed-fire collaboration in New York. Dave McWethy ’92, a faculty member at Montana State University, brought his research on changing fire regimes and climate.
The Laurentian connections extended further. Sunita Halasz P’27 delivered a keynote address on regional collaboration and resilience, while Liz Cox of the North Carolina Institute for Climate Studies—whose mother attended St. Lawrence and who had previously spoken to St. Lawrence students—contributed her perspective.
St. Lawrence students were part of the research conversation as well. Samburgh’s Adirondack Fire Futures course partnered with Clarkson students to investigate how communities across northern New York perceive wildfire risk and how prepared they are to respond. Their research resulted in three posters presented at the symposium, focusing on the Saranac Lake region, the Adirondack town of Keene, and northern New York’s agricultural community.
“It was exciting to see the leadership and expertise Laurentians are bringing to questions of wildfire, climate change, forest protection, and community resilience,” Husic says.
Putting Preparedness into Practice
That connection between academic study and action is also playing out thousands of miles away for another Laurentian. After graduating in May, Hayden Beyer ’26, a Lowville, New York, native who studied statistics and environmental studies-math, headed to Oregon, where he has been helping fight wildfires affecting communities and wildlife across the state. As a St. Lawrence student, Beyer had already put his academic interests into practice through senior research that included conducting a greenhouse gas inventory for the University.
For Husic, bringing these different perspectives together is essential because wildfire preparedness isn’t solely a scientific question. It is also about public health, emergency response, community planning, forest management, education, and the capacity of local communities to adapt.
“What we need to do is think about, ‘Well, what do we know?’” Husic told North Country Public Radio ahead of the symposium. Climate models cannot predict exactly when or where a fire will happen, she explained, but they can help researchers understand changing risk—and communities can use that knowledge to think differently about preparedness and resilience.
And while the Adirondacks may never resemble the fire-prone landscapes of the American West, the changing climate is prompting new questions about a region many Laurentians know and love.
For Husic, that makes the purpose of the work straightforward: How do we protect forests that are changing while also keeping the communities within them safe?
St. Lawrence students, faculty, and alumni are helping the region figure out what comes next.
