Camille Stevens-Rumann is an assistant professor of Forest and Rangeland Stewardship at Colorado State University and assistant director of the Colorado Forest Restoration Institute. Her research focuses on post-disturbance recovery and challenges facing disturbed lands, whether that is understanding species and ecosystem responses to disturbances or applications for improving future ecosystem management.
Before she joined the Department of Forest and Rangeland Stewardship and the Colorado Forest Restoration Institute at CSU, Stevens-Rumann was an undergraduate student at Brandeis University in Massachusetts working for the U.S. Forest Service and volunteering for the Rocky Mountain Research Station. She worked as a seasonal wildland firefighter for the USFS throughout the spring and summer for four years before pursuing a career in research and academia.
Recently, Stevens-Rumann spoke to National Geographic to talk about her research covering numerous wildfires in Colorado, Idaho, Montana, and Washington about the decrease in the regeneration of many trees in post-wildfire sites.
Reading: National Geographic “Forests are reeling from climate change—but the future isn’t lost”
She has also been featured on NPR’s Science Friday to talk about how a hotter drier climate contributes to regeneration difficulties and the complexities of firefighting in the wildland-urban interface.
Read more about Camille Stevens-Rumann here: Former wildland firefighter teaches, conducts research on record-breaking fires
Q&A with Camille Stevens-Rumann:
Q: Why do you study wildfire and what aspects do you focus on?
A: I study wildfire because fire is an amazing and destructive force but can also be a rebirth. As a fire ecologist, I get to study what comes back after a fire and see the rebirth and transformation.
Q: What is the goal of your wildfire research, and can you summarize what the research involves?
A: I look at how ecosystems are recovering from wildfires, especially in the face of unprecedented changes in how fires burn and the conditions under which our plants are trying to recover.
Q: What is something you’d like people to know about wildfires?
A: There are some amazing responses from plants and fungi and animals after a fire. It feels devastating sometimes but I’m always willing to look for the silver lining.
Q: Are there any misconceptions about wildfire you’d like to address?
A: People have been managing the landscape with fire for millennia, so suppressing fire is really the exception for many of our systems.