A Portland State University professor recently received a $350,000 federal grant to study how high-intensity fires, re-burns, and human activity could result in the collapse of forest ecosystems. The National Science Foundation awarded PSU College of Liberal Arts and Sciences geography professor Andrés Holz the grant in support of work that aims to assess the topographic and environmental factors that promote or inhibit wildfires. The study will take place across a swath of forests and woodlands near the Argentinian and Chilean border in the Patagonian region of South America. The grant also funds a series of field and laboratory experiments that will inform regional post-fire forest restoration efforts under conditions that may result from climate change.