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Unprecedented conditions in Rocky Mountain subalpine forests challenge contemporary approaches to forest restoration, requiring deep thinking across the science–management spectrum. Paleoecology can contribute to this endeavor by contextualizing ongoing change and revealing how ecosystem transformations unfolded in the past. 

The 2020 fire season punctuated a decades-long trend of increased fire activity across the western United States, nearly doubling the total area burned in the central Rocky Mountains since 1984. Un- derstanding the causes and implications of such extreme fire sea- sons, particularly in subalpine forests that have historically burned infrequently, requires a long-term perspective not afforded by ob- servational records. We place 21st century fire activity in subalpine forests in the context of climate and fire history spanning the past 2,000 y using a unique network of 20 paleofire records. Largely because of extensive burning in 2020, the 21st century fire rota- tion period is now 117 y, reflecting nearly double the average rate of burning over the past 2,000 y. More strikingly, contemporary rates of burning are now 22% higher than the maximum rate reconstructed over the past two millennia, during the early Medi- eval Climate Anomaly (MCA) (770 to 870 Common Era), when Northern Hemisphere temperatures were ∼0.3 °C above the 20th century average. The 2020 fire season thus exemplifies how ex- treme events are demarcating newly emerging fire regimes as cli- mate warms. With 21st century temperatures now surpassing those during the MCA, fire activity in Rocky Mountain subalpine forests is exceeding the ran 

Increasing wildfire activity in western North America has the potential to remove forest canopy cover over large areas, increasing the vulnerability of understory plants and juvenile trees to micro- climatic extremes. To understand the impacts of wildfire on forest microclimatic buffering, we monitored daily temperature and vapor pressure deficit (VPD) in 33 plots over the first two growing seasons follow- ing two wildfires from 2017. The Lolo Peak and Sunrise fires occurred during a regionally extensive fire season, burning mixed-conifer and subalpine forests across complex mountainous topography in western Montana. Sensors were deployed from June to September in 2018 and 2019 in sites stratified by aspect, ele- vation, and fire severity (unburned, moderate, high) to capture a range of forest types, biophysical con- texts, and fire effects. Loss of canopy and understory vegetation had marked effects on microclimate: On average, sites burned at high severity had 3.7°C higher daily maximum temperatures and 0.81 kPa higher daily maximum VPD relative to paired unburned sites. Differences between burned and unburned sites were most pronounced when ambient temperatures were high, across diurnal and seasonal time scales. Differences were also more pronounced at sites with less canopy cover, more bare ground postfire, and greater long-term water availability (i.e., low climatic water deficit). Our results reveal fire-caused changes in microclimate extremes that are biologically meaningful for the postfire establishment of tree seedlings and understory vegetation. These effects depend strongly on biophysical context, with cool-wet forests more vulnerable to fire-caused changes in microclimate compared with warm-dry settings. Our results fur- ther highlight the functional importance of standing dead trees for moderating surface temperature in postfire environments. Anticipating forest ecosystem responses to increased warming and wildfire activity, and the potential for fire to catalyze vegetation changes, thus requires considering the substantial impacts of fire on microclimate.