Effect of Climate on Wildfire Size: A Cross-Scale Analysis

Slocum, Matthew G.; Beckage, Brian; Platt, William; Orzell, Steve L.; Taylor, W. Rowland

doi:10.1007/s10021-010-9357-y

Cited by 57 publications

(61 citation statements)

References 22 publications

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“…In order to get a more complete assessment of how fire size responded to our predictor variables of interest, we used a modelling technique called quantile regression to assess the relationships between fire size distribution and the precipitation, N deposition and biomass variables. Quantile regression (Koenker and Bassett 1978) estimates the effects of explanatory variables for different portions of the distribution of a response variable, rather than just modelling the mean response, and has been shown to be a useful technique for analysing a variety of ecological datasets (Cade and Noon 2003), including identifying relationships between wildfire size and climate variables (Slocum et al 2010). A series of modelling functions is estimated at different levels of t, with t representing the fractions of expected response values (e.g.…”

Section: Statistical Analysesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Relationships between annual plant productivity, nitrogen deposition and fire size in low-elevation California desert scrub

Rao

Matchett

Brooks

et al. 2015

Int. J. Wildland Fire

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Abstract. Although precipitation is correlated with fire size in desert ecosystems and is typically used as an indirect surrogate for fine fuel load, a direct link between fine fuel biomass and fire size has not been established. In addition, nitrogen (N) deposition can affect fire risk through its fertilisation effect on fine fuel production. In this study, we examine the relationships between fire size and precipitation, N deposition and biomass with emphasis on identifying biomass and N deposition thresholds associated with fire spreading across the landscape. We used a 28-year fire record of 582 burns from low-elevation desert scrub to evaluate the relationship of precipitation, N deposition and biomass with the distribution of fire sizes using quantile regression. We found that models using annual biomass have similar predictive ability to those using precipitation and N deposition at the lower to intermediate portions of the fire size distribution. No distinct biomass threshold was found, although within the 99th percentile of the distribution fire size increased with greater than 125 g m À2 of winter fine fuel production. The study did not produce an N deposition threshold, but did validate the value of 125 g m À2 of fine fuel for spread of fires.

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Section: Statistical Analysesmentioning

confidence: 99%

Relationships between annual plant productivity, nitrogen deposition and fire size in low-elevation California desert scrub

Rao

Matchett

Brooks

et al. 2015

Int. J. Wildland Fire

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“…High-frequency fire regimes ( 3 years; Huffman 2006, Stambaugh et al 2011) are recognized as a keystone process in the LLPE and a crucial reference condition for restoring and conserving the LLPE (Aschenbach et al 2010). The natural fire regime required a high degree of landscape connectivity that resulted from interactions among regional topography (van Lear et al 2005) and firefacilitating vegetation (Beckage et al 2005) that encouraged fires to burn for extended periods of time and, under favorable climatic conditions, to spread over vast areas (Slocum et al 2010a). An emergent property of this landscape dynamic was a fire feedback that increased the frequency an area burned by allowing ignition sources to occur at great distances (Beckage et al 2005, van Lear et al 2005.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

The reproductive response of an endemic bunchgrass indicates historical timing of a keystone process

et al. 2012

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Abstract. Restoration of the Pinus palustris (longleaf pine)-wiregrass ecosystem of the southeastern United States requires information on reference conditions such as the historical fire regime. Aristida beyrichiana (wiregrass), a keystone perennial bunchgrass, was historically widespread throughout the southeast, but its dependence upon growing season fires for sexual reproduction hastened its decline in the face of decades of human fire suppression. The reproductive response of wiregrass is described by patterns of meristem allocation between competing life history strategies (i.e., vegetative growth vs. sexual reproduction). The temporal link between fire and flowering indicates this allocation was optimized to the historical fire regime through selection. In this study, we used the observed allocation of wiregrass reproductive effort to sexual reproduction as the response variable to examine reproductive response to fire season, using plant size as a covariate. Sexual reproduction was positively associated with plant size. Plants burned during early summer (May-June) produced a greater proportion of inflorescences than did those burned in early spring (March-April) or in late summer (August). Using state records of natural (lightningignited) and anthropogenic (human-ignited) fires from historical (1933)(1934)(1935)(1936)(1937)(1938)(1939)(1940)(1941)(1942)(1943)(1944)(1945)(1946) and contemporary (1998-2010) periods we found that the distribution of maximum wiregrass reproductive output most closely reflected the distribution of historical fires with natural ignition sources. Moreover, while the monthly distributions of historical and contemporary fires were different for anthropogenic ignitions, they did not differ for fires with natural ignitions. Our predictions of peak allocation based upon the biology of wiregrass provide strong support for the use of wiregrass as an indicator of the historical fire season (early summer). Efforts to restore the longleaf pine ecosystem should therefore consider the biological response of wiregrass in planning prescribed fires.

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“…Alternatively, there may be distinct domains of fire behavior associated with particular fire size ranges. Individual fires could shift from one domain of behavior to another once some threshold in fire size has been crossed (Peters et al 2004, Slocum et al 2010. For example, the initial spread of a fire within small patches of vegetation may be influenced primarily by localscale fuel availability (including mass, connectivity, and moisture).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Scale‐dependent thresholds in the dominant controls of wildfire size in semi‐arid southwest Australia

et al. 2014

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Abstract. We aimed to characterize the size distribution of naturally occurring wildfires and to determine how fuel characteristics influence wildfire size in a vegetation mosaic of shrublands and woodlands in semi-arid southwest Australia. The shape of frequency-size distributions of fires can be used to elucidate shifts in the dominant drivers or constraints of fire size. We modeled the cumulative frequencysize distribution of wildfires in southwest Australia using a segmented linear model with two break points.

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Effect of Climate on Wildfire Size: A Cross-Scale Analysis

Cited by 57 publications

References 22 publications

Relationships between annual plant productivity, nitrogen deposition and fire size in low-elevation California desert scrub

Relationships between annual plant productivity, nitrogen deposition and fire size in low-elevation California desert scrub

The reproductive response of an endemic bunchgrass indicates historical timing of a keystone process

Scale‐dependent thresholds in the dominant controls of wildfire size in semi‐arid southwest Australia

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