Summary/Abstract
Over the past decades, increase in wildfire incidence throughout the western United States has caused decline in snowpack. Wildfires decrease the albedo of snow-covered areas by releasing ash and felling trees, which causes the ground to absorb more heat, melting snow. However, these impacts vary in intensity by region. Using satellite mapping of snow pack and government wildfire area datasets, researchers discovered that wildfires have increasingly moved from areas with early spring snowmelt to areas with later snowmelt. Overall, wildfires have increased in 70% of ecoregions with late snow melt since 1984. This increase and shift in wildfires impacts ecosystems which rely on snowpack to form streams. The decrease in albedo also accelerates overall warming trends in snow-covered areas.