“…Historically, wildfires have rarely impacted alpine ecosystems (Agee, ; Baker, ), and the response of non‐forested high‐elevation vegetation to wildfire is poorly documented (Agee, ; Cansler et al., ; Douglas & Ballard, ; Sugihara, van Wagtendonk, Schaffer, Fites‐Kaufman, & Thode, ). Also, common effects of fire suppression, such as fuel build‐up, are minimal on higher elevation ecosystems in the Rocky Mountains, largely because these areas have mean fire return intervals that are far longer than the period of fire suppression (Baker, ; Dennison, Brewer, Arnold, & Moritz, ; O'Leary, Bloom, Smith, Zempf, & Medler, ). But now, an altered regional fire regime involving shifts in the frequency, intensity, severity, timing, and spatial extent of fires (Riley & Loehman, ) is one of the major indirect effects of climate change that could impact species’ distributions.…”