${vImageAlt}
Jill Johnstone, associate professor in the Department of Biology.

Out of this world

One year following the worst forest fires in the province’s history, the U of S has partnered with NASA to study the after-effects of the fires in the north.

Jill Johnstone, an associate professor in the Department of Biology, will work with NASA’s Arctic Boreal Vulnerability Experiment (ABoVE) near La Ronge to examine the ecological changes caused by the fire, such as landscape changes and carbon outputs.

The wildfires displaced more than 13,000 people from the province’s northern communities and burned through 1.8 million hectares of forest.

ABoVE is a large-scale, long-term initiative that focuses on arctic and boreal regions in Western Canada and Alaska. The soil and vegetation in these regions contain a significant amount of carbon and play a large role in global weather and climate systems.

See more at CBC Saskatchewan.

Share this story