Reduced forest vulnerability due to management on the Hualapai Nation

•The Hualapai forest differs from similar ponderosa pine forests in the US Southwest.•Indigenous perspectives inform a long history of forest management and fire use.•Fewer ladder and surface fuels may better protect against high-severity fire.•As climate changes, ongoing management helps sustain socio-cultural and ecological values. Tribal nations in the US have worked to uphold their long history of managing forests in ways that reduce fuels, support ecosystem functioning, and enhance Indigenous livelihoods. Forests on the Hualapai Nation at the western end of the Grand Canyon have been actively managed for decades using fire and other treatments. We collected data on tree size and age structure, forest understory characteristics, and surface fuels to explore how the legacy of forest management, historical surface fire, and recent prescribed fire, have influenced the contemporary structure of the ponderosa pine-Gambel oak forest on the Hualapai tribal lands (hereafter Hualapai forest). Current overstory tree density (range: 361.1 to 1664.0 trees ha−1) and basal area (16.0 to 29.8 m2 ha−1) place the Hualapai forest in an intermediate state among more open vs. denser southwestern forests, but additional characteristics set the Hualapai forest apart from others in the region. In particular, diameter distributions of live ponderosa pine in the Hualapai forest are dominated by mid-diameter trees (trees ∼18-33 cm dbh), while diameter distributions of live ponderosa pine on forest lands across Arizona indicate a higher number of small-diameter trees (trees