Fire history and forest structure of an endangered subtropical ecosystem in the Florida Keys, USA

2013 ◽  
Vol 22 (3) ◽  
pp. 394 ◽  
Author(s):  
Grant L. Harley ◽  
Henri D. Grissino-Mayer ◽  
Sally P. Horn
Keyword(s):  
Fire History ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Fire Management ◽  
Stand Structure ◽  
Florida Keys ◽  
Fire Regimes ◽  
Pinus Elliottii ◽  
South Florida ◽  
Prescribed Burns ◽  
Fire Scar

We focussed on the influence of historical fire and varied fire management practices on the structure of globally endangered pine rockland ecosystems on two adjacent islands in the Florida Keys: Big Pine Key and No Name Key. We reconstructed fire history in two stands from fire scars on South Florida slash pines (Pinus elliottii Engelm. var. densa Little & Dor.) that were accurately dated using dendrochronology, and quantified stand structure to infer successional trajectories. Fire regimes on Big Pine Key and No Name Key over the past 150 years differed in fire return interval and spatial extent. Fire scar analysis indicated that fires burnt at intervals of 6 and 9 years (Weibull median probability interval) on Big Pine Key and No Name Key with the majority of fires occurring late in the growing season. On Big Pine Key, pine recruitment was widespread, likely due to multiple, widespread prescribed burns conducted since 2000. No Name Key experienced fewer fires than Big Pine Key, but pines recruited at the site from at least the 1890s through the 1970s. Today, pine recruitment is nearly absent on No Name Key, where fire management practices since 1957 could result in loss of pine rockland habitat.

scholarly journals Tree-Ring Based Reconstruction of Historical Fire in an Endangered Ecosystem in the Florida Keys

Fire ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 4 (4) ◽  
pp. 79
Author(s):  
Lauren A. Stachowiak ◽  
Maegen L. Rochner ◽  
Elizabeth A. Schneider ◽  
Grant L. Harley ◽  
Savannah A. Collins-Key ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Fire History ◽  
Prescribed Burning ◽  
Fire Behavior ◽  
Florida Keys ◽  
Pinus Elliottii ◽  
Slash Pine ◽  
South Florida ◽  
Natural Fire ◽  
Natural Fires ◽  
History Of

Big Pine Key, Florida, is home to one of Earth’s largest swaths of the critically-endangered dry forests. Known as pine rocklands, this fire-adapted ecosystem must experience regular fire to persist and remain healthy. Pine rocklands are composed of a sole canopy species: the South Florida slash pine (Pinus elliottii var. densa), along with a dense understory of various woody and herbaceous species, and minimal surface moisture and soil development. Slash pine record wildfire activity of the surrounding area via fire scars preserved within the annual tree rings formed by the species. Our study used dendrochronology to investigate the fire history of the pine rocklands on Big Pine Key, specifically within and around the National Key Deer Refuge (NKDR) because it is the largest segment of unfragmented pine rockland on the island. We combined the results found within the NKDR with those of a previous study completed in 2011, and incorporated historical documents and reports of prescribed and natural fires through November 2019 into our evaluation of fire history on Big Pine Key. We conclude that prescribed burning practices are vital to truly restore natural fire behavior, and repeated burning on these islands in the future must be prioritized.

Fire Management of Rangelands in the Kimberley Low-Rainfall Zone: a Review.

1999 ◽  
Vol 21 (1) ◽  
pp. 39 ◽  
Author(s):  
AB Craig
Keyword(s):  
Fire History ◽  
Fire Management ◽  
Fire Regime ◽  
Fire Regimes ◽  
Environmental Research ◽  
Fire Behaviour ◽  
General Management ◽  
Noaa Avhrr ◽  
Local Experience ◽  
Definition Of

This paper examines a range of environmental, research and practical issues affecting fire management of pastoral lands in the southern part of the Kimberley region in Western Australia. Although spinifex grasslands dominate most leases, smaller areas of more productive pastures are crucially important to many enterprises. There is a lack of local documentation of burning practices during traditional Aboriginal occupation; general features of the fire regime at that time can be suggested on the basis of information from other inland areas. Definition of current tire regimes is improving through interpretation of NOAA-AVHRR satellite imagery. Irregular extensive wildfires appear to dominate, although this should be confirmed by further accumulation, validation and analysis of fire history data. While these fires cause ma,jor difficulties. controlled burn~ng is a necessary part of station management. Although general management guidelines have been published. local research into tire-grazing effects has been very limited. For spinifex pastures, reconimendations are generally consistent with those applying elsewhere in northern Australia. They favour periodic burning of mature spinifex late in the year, before or shortly after the arrival of the first rains, with deferment of grazing. At that time. days of high fire danger may still be expected and prediction of fire behaviour is critical to burning decisions. Early dry-season burning is also required for creating protective tire breaks and to prepare for burning later in the year. Further development of tools for predicting fire behaviour, suited to the discontinuous fuels characteristic of the area, would be warranted. A range of questions concerning the timing and spatial pattern of burning, control of post-fire grazing, and the economics of fire management, should be addressed as resources permit. This can be done through a combination of opportunistic studies, modelling and documentation of local experience. The development of an expert system should be considered to assist in planning and conducting burning activities. Key words: Kimberley, fire regimes, fire management, pastoralism, spinifex

scholarly journals Visualizing When, Where, and How Fires Happen in U.S. Parks and Protected Areas

2020 ◽  
Vol 9 (5) ◽  
pp. 333
Author(s):  
Nicole C. Inglis ◽  
Jelena Vukomanovic
Keyword(s):  
Decision Making ◽  
Protected Areas ◽  
National Park ◽  
Fire History ◽  
National Park Service ◽  
Fire Management ◽  
Fire Regime ◽  
Fire Regimes ◽  
The United States ◽  
Park Service

Fire management in protected areas faces mounting obstacles as climate change alters disturbance regimes, resources are diverted to fighting wildfires, and more people live along the boundaries of parks. Evidence-based prescribed fire management and improved communication with stakeholders is vital to reducing fire risk while maintaining public trust. Numerous national fire databases document when and where natural, prescribed, and human-caused fires have occurred on public lands in the United States. However, these databases are incongruous and non-standardized, making it difficult to visualize spatiotemporal patterns of fire and engage stakeholders in decision-making. We created interactive decision analytics (“VISTAFiRe”) that transform fire history data into clear visualizations of the spatial and temporal dimensions of fire and its management. We demonstrate the utility of our approach using Big Cypress National Preserve and Everglades National Park as examples of protected areas experiencing fire regime change between 1980 and 2017. Our open source visualizations may be applied to any data from the National Park Service Wildland Fire Events Geodatabase, with flexibility to communicate shifts in fire regimes over time, such as the type of ignition, duration and magnitude, and changes in seasonal occurrence. Application of the tool to Everglades and Big Cypress revealed that natural wildfires are occurring earlier in the wildfire season, while human-caused and prescribed wildfires are becoming less and more common, respectively. These new avenues of stakeholder communication are allowing the National Park Service to devise research plans to prepare for environmental change, guide resource allocation, and support decision-making in a clear and timely manner.

scholarly journals A century of changing fire management alters ungulate forage in a wildfire-dominated landscape

2019 ◽  
Vol 92 (5) ◽  
pp. 523-537 ◽  
Author(s):  
Kelly M Proffitt ◽  
Jesse DeVoe ◽  
Kristin Barker ◽  
Rebecca Durham ◽  
Teagan Hayes ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Prescribed Fire ◽  
Fire History ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Fire Management ◽  
Forage Quality ◽  
Wildfire Management ◽  
Winter Range ◽  
Forestry Practices ◽  
Summer Range ◽  
Straightforward Approach

Abstract Forestry practices such as prescribed fire and wildfire management can modify the nutritional resources of ungulates across broad landscapes. To evaluate the influences of fire and forest management on ungulate nutrition, we measured and compared forage quality and abundance among a range of land cover types and fire histories within 3 elk ranges in Montana. We used historical fire data to assess fire-related variations in elk forage from 1900 to 2015. Fire affected summer forage more strongly than winter forage. Between 1900–1990 and 1990–2015, elk summer range burned by wildfire increased 242–1772 per cent, whereas the area on winter range burned by wildfire was low across all decades. Summer forage quality peaked in recently burned forests and decreased as time since burn increased. Summer forage abundance peaked in dry forests burned 6–15 years prior and mesic forests burned within 5 years. Forests recently burned by wildfire had higher summer forage quality and herbaceous abundance than those recently burned by prescribed fire. These results suggest that the nutritional carrying capacity for elk varies temporally with fire history and management practices. Our methods for characterizing nutritional resources provide a relatively straightforward approach for evaluating nutritional adequacy and tracking changes in forage associated with disturbances such as fire.

scholarly journals Variation in fire scar phenology from mixed conifer trees in the Sierra Nevada

2018 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 101-104 ◽  
Author(s):  
Scott L. Stephens ◽  
Liam Maier ◽  
Lilah Gonen ◽  
Jennifer D. York ◽  
Brandon M. Collins ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Sierra Nevada ◽  
Fire History ◽  
Fire Regimes ◽  
Fire Season ◽  
Mixed Conifer ◽  
Outer Bark ◽  
Individual Tree ◽  
Fire Scar ◽  
The Individual ◽  
In Fire

Fire scar based studies have provided robust reconstructions of past fire regimes. The season in which a fire occurs can have considerable impacts to ecosystems but inference on seasonality from fire scars is relatively uncertain. This study examined patterns in the phenology of cambium formation and wounding responses in the five common mixed conifer tree species of the Sierra Nevada. The outer bark was shaved on 35 trees and individual locations within the shaved portions were wounded systematically by applying direct heat using a handheld torch. Most of the trees had not commenced annual ring development by the first burning treatment in late May. By the second treatment, scars were identified mostly within the early or middle earlywood, although variation was high compared with other treatment periods. By late October, all scars were recorded at the ring boundary. Although intra-ring scar positions generally followed a logical temporal pattern, there was high tree to tree variation such as Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii (Mirb.) Franco) burned on 26 June induced scars in the early, mid, and late earlywood depending on the individual tree. This high variation makes it somewhat challenging to precisely assign past fire season to published fire history studies.

The influence of a variable fire regime on woodland structure and composition

2015 ◽  
Vol 24 (1) ◽  
pp. 59 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emma E. Burgess ◽  
Patrick Moss ◽  
Murray Haseler ◽  
Martine Maron
Keyword(s):  
Fire History ◽  
Stand Structure ◽  
Fire Regime ◽  
Fire Regimes ◽  
Fire Frequency ◽  
Fire Event ◽  
Time Since Fire ◽  
Eucalypt Woodlands ◽  
Vegetation Structures ◽  
The Relationship

The post-fire response of vegetation reflects not only a single fire event but is the result of cumulative effects of previous fires in the landscape. For effective ecological fire management there is a need to better understand the relationship between different fire regimes and vegetation structure. The study investigated how different fire regimes affect stand structure and composition in subtropical eucalypt woodlands of central Queensland. We found that fire history category (i.e. specific combinations of time since fire, fire frequency and season of last burn) strongly influenced richness and abundance of species categorised as mid-storey trees and those individuals currently in the mid-level strata. Time since fire and fire frequency appeared to have the strongest influence. A longer time since fire (>4 years since last burn), combined with infrequent fires (<2 fires in 12 year period) appeared to promote a dense mid-storey with the opposite conditions (<4 years since last burn; >2 fires in 12 year period) promoting more-open woodlands. Consideration of these combined fire regime attributes will allow fire managers to plan for a particular range of fire-mediated patches to maintain the desired diversity of vegetation structures.

scholarly journals Anthropogenic Fires in West African Landscapes: A Spatially Explicit Model Perspective of Humanized Savannas

Fire ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 62
Author(s):  
Sébastien Caillault ◽  
Paul Laris ◽  
Cyril Fleurant ◽  
Daniel Delahaye ◽  
Aziz Ballouche
Keyword(s):  
Management Practices ◽  
Fire Management ◽  
Fire Regimes ◽  
Blind Spot ◽  
Global Scale ◽  
Human Dimensions ◽  
Management Scenarios ◽  
Fire Dynamics ◽  
Anthropogenic Fire ◽  
The Impact

Fire regimes are important components of environmental dynamics, but our understanding of them is limited. Despite recent advances in the methodologies used to remotely sense and map fires and burned areas and new case studies that shed light on local fire use and management practices, the scientific community still has much to learn about anthropogenic fire regimes. We identify two areas for improvement: first, the fine-scale heterogeneity of fire dynamics for specific regions is often masked by global-scale approaches, and second, barriers between the disciplines focusing on fire impacts hamper the development of knowledge of the human dimensions of fire regimes. To address the “blind spot” that these limitations create, we present a simple dynamic model of fire ignition in savanna systems. The aim is to connect the local and global scales of fire regimes by focusing on human fire management (anthropogenic fire). Our dynamical model is based on a study area in Western Burkina Faso and integrates biophysical elements (climate and soil data), land cover, and fire management scenarios based on field surveys. The simulation results offer contrasting views of the impact of local fire management practices on regional fire regimes observed in savannas. Fire density and frequency are local variables that clearly change the fire regimes despite a complex and constrained biophysical system. This experience, drawing from fieldwork and modelling, may be a way to integrate some key aspects of anthropogenic fire research in savanna systems.

scholarly journals Fire History (1896–2013) in an Abies religiosa Forest in the Sierra Norte of Puebla, Mexico

Forests ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 12 (6) ◽  
pp. 700
Author(s):  
Julián Cerano-Paredes ◽  
Dante A. Rodríguez-Trejo ◽  
José M. Iniguez ◽  
Rosalinda Cervantes-Martínez ◽  
José Villanueva-Díaz ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Fire History ◽  
Southern Oscillation ◽  
Ring Width ◽  
Fire Regimes ◽  
Drought Severity ◽  
Past Century ◽  
Fire Scars ◽  
Fire Scar ◽  
Management Actions ◽  
Abies Religiosa

The oyamel forests, as Abies dominated forests are commonly known as, register their largest distribution (95% of their population) along the Trans-Mexican Volcanic Belt (TMVB). Although efforts have been made to study these forests with various approaches, dendrochronology-based studies have been limited, particularly in pure Abies forests in this region. The objective of this study was to reconstruct fire regimes in an Abies religiosa forest in the Sierra Norte in the state of Puebla, Mexico. Within an area of 50-ha, we collected 40 fire-scar samples, which were processed and analyzed using dendrochronological techniques to identify 153 fire scars. The fire history was reconstructed for a period of 118 years (1896–2013), with low severity surface fires occurring mainly during in the spring (92.8%) and summer (7.2%). Over the past century, fires were frequent, with an mean fire interval (MFI) and Weibull median probability of (WMPI) of five years when considering all fire scars and less than 10 years for fires covering larger areas (fires recorded by ≥25% of samples). Extensive fires were synchronized with drought conditions based on Ring Width Indexes, Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) and El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO). After 1983, we observed a change in fire frequencies attributed to regulated management. Longer fire intervals within the last several decades are likely leading to increased fuel accumulations and could potentially result in more severe fires in the future, threatening the sustainability of these forests. Based on our finding, we recommend management actions (silvicultural or prescribed fire) to reduce fuels and the risk of severe fires, particularly in the face of climatic changes.

Accurate estimation of mean fire interval for managing fire

2006 ◽  
Vol 15 (4) ◽  
pp. 489 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xiaojun Kou ◽  
William L. Baker
Keyword(s):  
Fire History ◽  
Fire Regimes ◽  
New Method ◽  
Tree Age ◽  
Accurate Estimation ◽  
Individual Tree ◽  
Interval Method ◽  
Population Mean ◽  
Fire Scar ◽  
Mean Fire Interval

Accurate fire-history data are needed if local management of fire or costly national plans for restoring and managing fire and forest structure are to succeed. Fire-history researchers often use fire scars and the composite fire interval method to reconstruct parameters of past fire regimes, such as the population mean fire interval, but the composite method has serious limitations. We modified an alternative non-composite fire interval method, the individual-tree fire-interval method, to derive a more accurate new method, the all-tree fire-interval method. A stochastic fire-scar generating model to assess the accuracy of the new method and its predecessors was then used. Three factors (scarring ratio, population mean fire interval, and tree age) that affect accuracy were varied in the model runs. More complexity (trees with varied scarring ratio between the first scar and successive scars) also was modelled to test the robustness of the method. The all-tree fire-interval method was shown to greatly improve accuracy and provide unbiased estimates of the population mean fire interval. The method also produced encouraging results when scarring was more complex. The new all-tree fire-interval method will require further research on the rates at which trees are scarred by fire, but this would be generally beneficial to understanding fire history.

Stratigraphic Charcoal Analysis on Petrographic Thin Sections: Application to Fire History in Northwestern Minnesota

1988 ◽  
Vol 30 (1) ◽  
pp. 81-91 ◽  
Author(s):  
James S. Clark
Keyword(s):  
Lake Sediments ◽  
Fire History ◽  
Fire Regime ◽  
Fire Suppression ◽  
Fire Regimes ◽  
Charcoal Analysis ◽  
Fire Scars ◽  
Good Correspondence ◽  
Thin Sections ◽  
Fire Scar

Results of stratigraphic charcoal analysis from thin sections of varved lake sediments have been compared with fire scars on red pine trees in northwestern Minnesota to determine if charcoal data accurately reflect fire regimes. Pollen and opaque-spherule analyses were completed from a short core to confirm that laminations were annual over the last 350 yr. A good correspondence was found between fossil-charcoal and fire-scar data. Individual fires could be identified as specific peaks in the charcoal curves, and times of reduced fire frequency were reflected in the charcoal data. Charcoal was absent during the fire-suppression era from 1920 A.D. to the present. Distinct charcoal maxima from 1864 to 1920 occurred at times of fire within the lake catchment. Fire was less frequent during the 19th century, and charcoal was substantially less abundant. Fire was frequent from 1760 to 1815, and charcoal was abundant continuously. Fire scars and fossil charcoal indicate that fires did not occur during 1730–1750 and 1670–1700. Several fires occurred from 1640 to 1670 and 1700 to 1730. Charcoal counted from pollen preparations in the area generally do not show this changing fire regime. Simulated “sampling” of the thin-section data in a fashion comparable to pollen-slide methods suggests that sampling alone is not sufficient to account for differences between the two methods. Integrating annual charcoal values in this fashion still produced much higher resolution than the pollen-slide method, and the postfire suppression decline of charcoal characteristic of my method (but not of pollen slides) is still evident. Consideration of the differences in size of fragments counted by the two methods is necessary to explain charcoal representation in lake sediments.

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