Most fire ecology and fire modeling approaches that guide landscape restoration assume lightning ignitions historically drove fire effects across landscapes. Integrating anthropogenic and natural ignitions to reconstruct an historical, cultural fire regime will allow us to better understand how coupled human-natural systems shaped the Klamath Mountain Ecoregion over millennia, and how to leverage that knowledge to shape future forest conditions. We will synthesize forest plot, ethnographic, and historical non-plot data (e.g, oblique landscape and stereo aerial photos, fire atlases, maps, fire history studies, and fire TEK of this region. We will use multi-proxy inputs to develop an ignition dataset (location, frequency, seasonality) to couple natural ignitions with an improved understanding of the probable extent and frequency of cultural burning. We will use dendrochronological data collected in an overlapping network of fire scar and age structure plots (at CVS plots augmented by plots stratified from our synthesis of existing data and knowledge), spanning key cultural, forest type and biophysical gradients, to reconstruct dominant historical fire regime characteristics (e.g., fire frequency, seasonality and severity). With Tribal partners, we will stratify sampling locations by distance from historical village and trail locations and along gradients of known cultural fire use. Douglas-fir and dry-mixed conifer forests are highly departed from historical conditions, are threatened by contemporary wildfires, climate change, and invasive pathogens (including sudden oak death), and contain critical habitat for many culturally and ecologically important species. We will link our co-produced knowledge of historical fire regimes to existing understory vegetation and seed-bank data collected at each plot, including previously burned sites, to identify areas where native seeds can be collected pre- and post-mechanical or fire treatments. This will inform the best native seed mixes to use in post-disturbance landscapes. The focus of the MEP student would be on dendroecology (tree ring/fire scar analyses), with the opportunity to assist other components of the project.