Forest ecosystems are complex systems that are often altered by human activities, and the Black Hills are no exception. Fire dynamics and landscape structure of the Black Hills changed from the historical range of variability (HRV) as a result of Euro-American settlement activities like cattle grazing, fire suppression, and timber harvesting. The main questions addressed by this study were: (1) How do the landscape composition and dynamics differ between the Black Hills’ fire-suppressed and pre-settlement landscapes? (2) Are there spatial differences in the composition of the landscape among precipitation zones with different fire rotations; and (3) If fire suppression activities were halted in the Black Hills, how long would the landscape structure and composition take to return to its historical range of variability and would it return to its HRV in linear fashion?

This study modeled three scenarios using a spatially-explicit forest landscape model that simulates forest disturbances and models vegetation transitions and fire dynamics in response to those disturbances. The HRV scenario established a baseline of data that was compared with the Fire Suppression scenario data. The comparison showed that the relative amounts of structural stages present and the fire dynamics in each scenario were vastly different. A third scenario, the Forest Restoration scenario, simulated the switch from 500 years of a Fire Suppression fire regime to a HRV fire regime, and it showed that the landscape does return to its HRV landscape but it does so in a non-linear fashion. Understanding how a forested landscape responds to fire, both historically and contemporarily, can assist land managers in achieving sustainable ecosystems.