LEAF Lab researchers are working with land managers in New Mexico, Texas, Colorado, and elswhere to understand how local knowledge from these stakeholders can be better incorporated into the way we assess wildfire hazard in different ecosystems. We have a variety of ongoing projects that fit this theme, including with partners in Lincoln National Forest and Carson National Forest. 

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In 2026, we will begin a new project with collaborators at Texas Tech, University of Colorado, and the University of Illinois to create a network of landscapes, managers, and researchers to study grassland fire behavior. Through this network, we will identify shortcomings in current understanding, design burning experiments, and measure drivers of fire behavior across scales. Because high spatial and temporal resolution fuel maps are one of the major barriers to more useful grassland wildfire risk assessment and management, we aim to both test current products and develop new approaches to predicting fuel characteristics across complex grassland landscapes. This project is sponsored by the National Science Foundation.