Spatially and Temporally Variable Fire Regime on Rincon Peak, Arizona, USA

Iniguez, José M.; Swetnam, Thomas W.; Baisan, Christopher H.

doi:10.4996/fireecology.0501003

Cited by 58 publications

(50 citation statements)

References 38 publications

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“…Evidence of past high-severity fire during the Holocene exists in some drier, low-to mid-elevation forest systems (Frechette et al, 2003;Pierce & Meyer, 2008;Jenkins et al, 2011), as well as within the tree-ring record (Brown et al, 1999;Iniguez et al, 2009). Patch size distributions of past high-severity events are largely unknown, however, for virtually all forest types that do not regenerate consistently as even-aged cohorts within large fire-generated openings (i.e.…”

Section: Why Is This Important?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Unsupported inferences of high‐severity fire in historical dry forests of the western United States: response to Williams and Baker

Fulé

Swetnam

Brown

et al. 2013

Global Ecology and Biogeography

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Reconstructions of dry western US forests in the late 19th century in Arizona, Colorado and Oregon based on General Land Office records were used by Williams & Baker (2012; Global Ecology and Biogeography, 21, 1042-1052; hereafter W&B) to infer past fire regimes with substantial moderate and high-severity burning. The authors concluded that present-day large, high-severity fires are not distinguishable from historical patterns. We present evidence of important errors in their study. First, the use of tree size distributions to reconstruct past fire severity and extent is not supported by empirical age-size relationships nor by studies that directly quantified disturbance history in these forests. Second, the fire severity classification of W&B is qualitatively different from most modern classification schemes, and is based on different types of data, leading to an inappropriate comparison. Third, we note that while W&B asserted 'surprising' heterogeneity in their reconstructions of stand density and species composition, their data are not substantially different from many previous studies which reached very different conclusions about subsequent forest and fire behaviour changes. Contrary to the conclusions of W&B, the preponderance of scientific evidence indicates that conservation of dry forest ecosystems in the western United States and their ecological, social and economic value is not consistent with a present-day disturbance regime of large, high-severity fires, especially under changing climate. KeywordsFire regime, fire severity, General Land Office survey, historical range of variability, ponderosa pine, wildfire. INTRODUCTIONA recent study in Global Ecology and Biogeography (Williams & Baker, 2012, hereafter W&B) applied historical data from General Land Office (GLO) surveys c. 1880 to reconstruct historical dry forests on four large landscapes in Arizona, Colorado and Oregon (USA). W&B described forest composition as characterized by 'abundant ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa C. Lawson), with lesser amounts of Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii (Mirb.) Franco), white fir (Abies concolor (Gord. & Glend.) Lindl. ex Hildebr.), grand fir (Abies grandis (Douglas ex D. Don) Lindl.), juniper (Juniperus L.), western larch (Larix occidentalis Nutt.) and lodgepole pine (Pinus contorta Douglas ex Louden)' . W&B infer that the presence of a certain proportion of trees below a site-specific diameter threshold is evidence of 'higher'-severity fire, a term they use to indicate a combination of 'mixed-plus high-severity fire' . They then compare the proportion of plots with evidence of 'higher'-severity fire to the distribution of fire severities estimated from satellite imagery of recent large wildfires in the western United States, concluding that modern fires are within the historical range of variability (HRV) of fire severity. They also found it 'surprising' that dry forests 'commonly thought to have been open and parklike' were heterogeneous and relatively dense. W&B conclude that current management pr...

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Section: Why Is This Important?mentioning

confidence: 99%

Unsupported inferences of high‐severity fire in historical dry forests of the western United States: response to Williams and Baker

Fulé

Swetnam

Brown

et al. 2013

Global Ecology and Biogeography

Self Cite

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“…Consequently, one uniform In any given year within the study period, fire events often occurred between April and September, especially in the two months of September and April (Figure 8). The spatial and temporal patterns of fires were often affected by topography, vegetation, climate, and human activity [31]. Previous studies of burned areas, which used data from the AVHRR (the Advanced Very High Resolution Radiometer) and GOES satellite, also documented that fire exhibits a distinctive seasonality, with a peak from June to August.…”

Section: Discussion Of Uncertainties and Limitationsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reconstructing Fire Records from Ground-Based Routine Aerosol Monitoring

et al. 2016

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Long-term fire records are important to understanding the trend of biomass burning and its interactions with air quality and climate at regional and global scales. Traditionally, such data have been compiled from ground surveys or satellite remote sensing. To obtain aerosol information during a fire event to use in analyzing air quality, we propose a new method of developing a long-term fire record for the contiguous United States using an unconventional data source: ground-based aerosol monitoring. Assisted by satellite fire detection, the mass concentration, size distribution, and chemical composition data of surface aerosols collected from the Interagency Monitoring of Protected Visual Environments (IMPROVE) network are examined to identify distinct aerosol characteristics during satellite-detected fire and non-fire periods. During a fire episode, elevated aerosol concentrations and heavy smoke are usually recorded by ground monitors and satellite sensors. Based on the unique physical and chemical characteristics of fire-dominated aerosols reported in the literature, we analyzed the surface aerosol observations from the IMPROVE network during satellite-detected fire events to establish a set of indicators to identify fire events from routine aerosol monitoring data. Five fire identification criteria were chosen: (1) high concentrations of PM 2.5 and PM 10 (particles smaller than 2.5 and 10 in diameters, respectively); (2) a high PM 2.5 /PM 10 ratio; (3) high organic carbon (OC/PM 2.5 ) and elemental carbon (EC/PM 2.5 ) ratios; (4) a high potassium (K/PM 2.5 ) ratio; and (5) a low soil/PM 2.5 ratio. Using these criteria, we are able to identify a number of fire episodes close to 15 IMPROVE monitors from 2001 to 2011. Most of these monitors are located in the Western and Central United States. In any given year within the study period fire events often occurred between April and September, especially in the two months of April and September. This ground-based fire climatology is also consistent with that derived from satellite retrievals. This study demonstrates that it is feasible to reconstruct historic records of fire events based on continuous ground aerosol monitoring. This dataset can provide not only fire activity information but also fire-induced aerosol surface concentrations and chemical composition that can be used to verify satellite-based products and evaluate air quality and climate modeling results. However, caution needs to be exercised because these indicators are based on a limited number of fire events, and the proposed methodology should be further tested and confirmed in future research.

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“…A portion of the historical montane forest landscape in any given region undoubtedly comprised open forest dominated by low-severity fire (e.g., Brown et al, 1999, Fulé et al 2009, Iniguez et al, 2009Perry et al, 2011;Williams and Baker, 2012a;Hagmann et al, 2013;Baker, 2014), and some forest types (e.g., ponderosa pine [Pinus ponderosa]) often had a preponderance of low-severity fire in many low-elevation or xeric-type forest environments throughout western North America. Nevertheless, landscape-level evidence indicates that vast forested areas also comprised moderate to very dense forests characterized by a mixed-severity fire regime, wherein higher-severity fire patches of varying sizes occurred in a mosaic of low-and moderate-severity fire effects (Veblen andLorenz, 1986, 1991;Baker et al, 2007;Sherriff and Veblen, 2007;Hessburg et al, 2007;Perry et al, 2011;Baker, 2012;Williams and Baker, 2012a,b;Baker, 2014;Baker and Williams, 2015;Hanson and Odion, 2015a).…”

Section: Do Open and Park-like Structures Provide An Accurate Historimentioning

confidence: 99%