Fire in arctic tundra of Alaska: past fire activity, future fire potential, and significance for land management and ecology

2015 ◽  
Vol 24 (8) ◽  
pp. 1045 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nancy H. F. French ◽  
Liza K. Jenkins ◽  
Tatiana V. Loboda ◽  
Michael Flannigan ◽  
Randi Jandt ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Land Management ◽  
Land Use Planning ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Fire Regime ◽  
Arctic Tundra ◽  
Fire Weather Index ◽  
Fire Activity ◽  
Circumpolar Arctic ◽  
Average Size ◽  
In Fire

A multidecadal analysis of fire in Alaskan Arctic tundra was completed using records from the Alaska Large Fire Database. Tundra vegetation fires are defined by the Circumpolar Arctic Vegetation Map and divided into five tundra ecoregions of Alaska. A detailed review of fire records in these regions is presented, and an analysis of future fire potential was performed based on future climate scenarios. The average size of tundra fire based on the data record is 22 km2 (5454 acres). Fires show a mean size of 10 km2 (2452 acres) and median of 0.064 km2 (16 acres), indicating small fires are common. Although uncommon, 16 fires larger than 300 km2 (74 132 acres) have been recorded across four ecoregions and all five decades. Warmer summers with extended periods of drying are expected to increase fire activity as indicated by fire weather index. The implications of the current fire regime and potential changes in fire regime are discussed in the context of land management and ecosystem services. Current fire management practices and land-use planning in Alaska should be specifically tailored to the tundra region based on the current fire regime and in anticipation of the expected change in fire regime projected with climate change.

Burning the Bush: The Development of Australia’s Southwest Botanical Province

2013 ◽  
Author(s):  
Fiona Kost
Keyword(s):  
Land Management ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Prescribed Burning ◽  
Aboriginal People ◽  
Fire Regime ◽  
Historical Records ◽  
The Past ◽  
Environmental Narratives ◽  
European Colonization ◽  
The Impact

Though early historical records frequently mention Aboriginal, or Noongar, firing in south-western Australia, little is known about how the Noongar people managed the vegetation with fire, or the impact this has had on the environment. This study uses interdisciplinary archaeology, with information from ethnographic data, historical records, and pollen records from the last 6,000 years to determine the actions of the Noongar people and demonstrate how the Southwest Botanical Province can be viewed as an artefact of Noongar land management. It is widely accepted that Aboriginal people have had an effect on some of Australia’s vegetation types through fire (Bowman 1998; Hallam 1975; Kershaw et al. 2002) although the extent of the influence of Aboriginal firing is debated (Mooney et al. 2007). However, pollen data and the study of fire indicators in Xanthorrhoea and Eucalyptus trunks have been used to demonstrate that the frequency of fire events in the south-west has decreased since European colonization (Atahan et al. 2004; Ward et al. 2001), resulting in the loss of fire-dependent vegetation species and changes in vegetation distribution patterns. This disruption of the vegetation communities has been compounded by the extensive clearing of land for farming and the displacement of the Noongar people (Dodson 2001). The impact that European colonization had on vegetation becomes more apparent as an understanding of the Noongar fire management practices is gained. There is increasing acknowledgement by researchers of the need to understand the influence of the past fire regime on vegetation patterns and to acknowledge traditional land management practices (Hopper and Gioia 2004), as well as the changes caused by European attempts to create a ‘natural’ regime, so that land management groups can take them into account when determining modern-day prescribed burning timetables. Archaeological studies such as this one can provide a unique insight into the past actions of people such as the Noongar, allowing us to determine how they shaped the landscape prior to European colonization (see Balée, Chapter 3 this volume for a more direct discussion of the ‘indigenous’ nature of pre-colonial landscapes; see Stump, Chapter 10 this volume for similar discussions of colonial and postcolonial environmental narratives).

Determinants of fire activity during the last 3500 yr at a wildland—urban interface, Alberta, Canada

2016 ◽  
Vol 86 (3) ◽  
pp. 247-259 ◽  
Author(s):  
Emma L. Davis ◽  
Colin J. Courtney Mustaphi ◽  
Amber Gall ◽  
Michael F.J. Pisaric ◽  
Jesse C. Vermaire ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Tree Ring ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Vegetation History ◽  
Fire Regime ◽  
Fire Suppression ◽  
Fire Frequency ◽  
Sources Of Information ◽  
Fire Activity ◽  
Historical Range

AbstractLong-term records of wildfires and their controlling factors are important sources of information for informing land management practices. Here, dendrochronology and lake sediment analyses are used to develop a 3500-yr fire and vegetation history for a montane forest in Jasper National Park, Alberta, Canada. The tree-ring record (AD 1771-2012) indicates that this region historically experienced a mixed-severity fire regime, and that effective fire suppression excluded widespread fire events from the study area during the 20th century. A sediment core collected from Little Trefoil Lake, located near the Jasper townsite, is analyzed for subfossil pollen and macroscopic charcoal (>150 μm). When comparing the tree-ring record to the 3500-yr record of sediment-derived fire events, only high-severity fires are represented in the charcoal record. Comparisons between the charcoal record and historical climate and pollen data indicate that climate and vegetation composition have been important controls on the fire regime for most of the last 3500 yr. Although fire frequency is presently within the historical range of variability, the fire return interval of the last 150 yr is longer than expected given modern climate and vegetation conditions, indicating that humans have become the main control on fire activity around Little Trefoil Lake.

scholarly journals Regional variation in fire weather controls the reported occurrence of Scottish wildfires

PeerJ ◽  
2016 ◽  
Vol 4 ◽  
pp. e2649 ◽  
Author(s):  
G. Matt Davies ◽  
Colin J. Legg
Keyword(s):  
Habitat Management ◽  
Fire Risk ◽  
Management Tool ◽  
Fire Weather ◽  
Fuel Moisture ◽  
Fire Weather Index ◽  
Mahalanobis Distances ◽  
Wildfire Occurrence ◽  
Fire Activity ◽  
In Fire

Fire is widely used as a traditional habitat management tool in Scotland, but wildfires pose a significant and growing threat. The financial costs of fighting wildfires are significant and severe wildfires can have substantial environmental impacts. Due to the intermittent occurrence of severe fire seasons, Scotland, and the UK as a whole, remain somewhat unprepared. Scotland currently lacks any form of Fire Danger Rating system that could inform managers and the Fire and Rescue Services (FRS) of periods when there is a risk of increased of fire activity. We aimed evaluate the potential to use outputs from the Canadian Fire Weather Index system (FWI system) to forecast periods of increased fire risk and the potential for ignitions to turn into large wildfires. We collated four and a half years of wildfire data from the Scottish FRS and examined patterns in wildfire occurrence within different regions, seasons, between urban and rural locations and according to FWI system outputs. We used a variety of techniques, including Mahalanobis distances, percentile analysis and Thiel-Sen regression, to scope the best performing FWI system codes and indices. Logistic regression showed significant differences in fire activity between regions, seasons and between urban and rural locations. The Fine Fuel Moisture Code and the Initial Spread Index did a tolerable job of modelling the probability of fire occurrence but further research on fuel moisture dynamics may provide substantial improvements. Overall our results suggest it would be prudent to ready resources and avoid managed burning when FFMC > 75 and/or ISI > 2.

Inter- and intra-annual profiles of fire regimes in the managed forests of Canada and implications for resource sharing

2012 ◽  
Vol 21 (4) ◽  
pp. 328 ◽  
Author(s):  
Steen Magnussen ◽  
Stephen W. Taylor
Keyword(s):  
Resource Sharing ◽  
Joint Distribution ◽  
Fire Management ◽  
Fire Regime ◽  
Fire Regimes ◽  
Fire Season ◽  
Burned Area ◽  
Fire Activity ◽  
In Fire ◽  
Regional Synchrony

Year-to-year variation in fire activity in Canada constitutes a key challenge for fire management agencies. Interagency sharing of fire management resources has been ongoing on regional, national and international scales in Canada for several decades to better cope with peaks in resource demand. Inherent stressors on these schemes determined by the fire regimes in constituent jurisdictions are not well known, nor described by averages. We developed a statistical framework to examine the likelihood of regional synchrony of peaks in fire activity at a timescale of 1 week. Year-to-year variations in important fire regime variables and 48 regions in Canada are quantified by a joint distribution and profiled at the Provincial or Territorial level. The fire regime variables capture the timing of the fire season, the average number of fires, area burned, and the timing and extent of annual maxima. The onset of the fire season was strongly correlated with latitude and longitude. Regional synchrony in the timing of the maximum burned area within fire seasons delineates opportunities for and limitations to sharing of fire suppression resources during periods of stress that were quantified in Monte Carlo simulations from the joint distribution.

A refinement of models projecting future Canadian fire regimes using homogeneous fire regime zones

2014 ◽  
Vol 44 (4) ◽  
pp. 365-376 ◽  
Author(s):  
Yan Boulanger ◽  
Sylvie Gauthier ◽  
Philip J. Burton
Keyword(s):  
Large Scale ◽  
Fire Regime ◽  
Fold Increase ◽  
Fire Regimes ◽  
Multivariate Adaptive Regression Splines ◽  
Energy Flows ◽  
Fire Activity ◽  
Ecological Patterns ◽  
Administrative Units ◽  
In Fire

Broad-scale fire regime modelling is frequently based on large ecological and (or) administrative units. However, these units may not capture spatial heterogeneity in fire regimes and may thus lead to spatially inaccurate estimates of future fire activity. In this study, we defined homogeneous fire regime (HFR) zones for Canada based on annual area burned (AAB) and fire occurrence (FireOcc), and we used them to model future (2011–2040, 2041–2070, and 2071–2100) fire activity using multivariate adaptive regression splines (MARS). We identified a total of 16 HFR zones explaining 47.7% of the heterogeneity in AAB and FireOcc for the 1959–1999 period. MARS models based on HFR zones projected a 3.7-fold increase in AAB and a 3.0-fold increase in FireOcc by 2100 when compared with 1961–1990, with great interzone heterogeneity. The greatest increases would occur in zones located in central and northwestern Canada. Much of the increase in AAB would result from a sharp increase in fire activity during July and August. Ecozone- and HFR-based models projected relatively similar nationwide FireOcc and AAB. However, very high spatial discrepancies were noted between zonations over extensive areas. The proposed HFR zonation should help providing more spatially accurate estimates of future ecological patterns largely driven by fire in the boreal forest such as biodiversity patterns, energy flows, and carbon storage than those obtained from large-scale multipurpose classification units.

scholarly journals Impacts of land management on the resilience of Mediterranean dry forests to fire

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Matteo Jucker Riva ◽  
Gudrun Schwilch ◽  
Hanspeter Liniger ◽  
Alejandro Valdecantos
Keyword(s):  
Land Management ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Fire Regime ◽  
Management Strategies ◽  
Time Frame ◽  
Mediterranean Forests ◽  
Before And After ◽  
History Of ◽  
Time Specific ◽  
The Impact

Wildfires have always been a part of the history of Mediterranean forests. However, forest regeneration after a wildfire is not certain. It depends on many factors, some of which may be influenced by land management activities. Failure of regeneration will cause a regime shift in the ecosystem, reducing the provision of ecosystem services and ultimately leading to desertification. How can we increase Mediterranean forests’ resilience to fire? To answer this question, we did a literature review, investigating chains of processes that allow forests to regenerate (which we label “regeneration mechanisms”), and assessed the impact of selected management practices documented in the WOCAT database on the regeneration mechanisms. We identified three distinct regeneration mechanisms that enable Mediterranean forests to recover, as well as the time frame before and after a fire in which they are at work, and factors that can hinder or support resilience. The three regeneration mechanisms enabling a forest to regenerate after a fire consist of regeneration (1) from a seed bank; (2) from resprouting individuals; and (3) from unburned plants that escaped the fire. Management practices were grouped into four categories: (1) fuel breaks, (2) fuel management, (3) afforestation, and (4) mulching. We assessed how and under what conditions land management modifies the ecosystem’s resilience. The results show that land management influences resilience by interacting with resilience mechanisms before and after the fire, and not just by modifying the fire regime. Our analysis demonstrates a need for adaptive – i.e. context- and time-specific – management strategies.

scholarly journals Testing Vegetation Flammability: The Problem of Extremely Low Ignition Frequency and Overall Flammability Score

2014 ◽  
Vol 2014 ◽  
pp. 1-10 ◽  
Author(s):  
Zorica Kauf ◽  
Andreas Fangmeier ◽  
Roman Rosavec ◽  
Željko Španjol
Keyword(s):  
Leaf Litter ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Fire Regime ◽  
Fire Regimes ◽  
Testing Methods ◽  
Testing Conditions ◽  
Similar Materials ◽  
Measured Information ◽  
In Fire ◽  
Extreme Fire

In the recent decades changes in fire regimes led to higher vulnerability of fire prone ecosystems, with vegetation being the only component influencing fire regime which can be managed in order to reduce probability of extreme fire events. For these management practices to be effective reliable information on the vegetation flammability is being crucial. Epiradiator based testing methods are one of the methods commonly used to investigate vegetation flammability and decrease in ignition frequency is always interpreted as a decrease in flammability. Furthermore, gathered information is often combined into a single flammability score. Here we present results of leaf litter testing which, together with previously conducted research on similar materials, show that material with very low ignition frequency under certain testing conditions can be extremely flammable if testing conditions are slightly changed. Additionally, our results indicate that combining measured information into one single flammability score, even though sometimes useful, is not always meaningful and should be performed with caution.

scholarly journals Burned area trends in the Brazilian Cerrado: the roles of climate and anthropogenic drivers

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Patrícia S. Silva ◽  
Julia A. Rodrigues ◽  
Filippe L. M. Santos ◽  
Joana Nogueira ◽  
Allan A. Pereira ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Land Use ◽  
Fire Management ◽  
Fire Regime ◽  
Fire Season ◽  
Burned Area ◽  
Eastern Region ◽  
Fire Weather Index ◽  
North Eastern ◽  
In Fire ◽  
Anthropogenic Drivers

<p>Fire is a natural disturbance in the Brazilian savannas, Cerrado, with substantial ecological and economic impacts. Most studies have characterized the fire regime in this biome using climate drivers but neglected the geographical variation of anthropogenic activities. These factors can trigger inappropriate fire-fighting decisions and biodiversity conservation policies. This takes special relevance in fire-prone biomes with recent fire management policies as Cerrado, which have been highly modified over the last decades due to changes in land use and climate. </p><p>Here, we aim to identify how variations in climate and anthropogenic drivers influence burned area (BA) trends at the regional level (microregions) in Cerrado. We evaluated satellite-derived BA (MCD64, collection 6) for 172 microregions from 2001 to 2018 across the entire biome. The Canadian Forest Fire Weather Index (FWI) was used as a proxy of climate using meteorological variables from ECMWF’s ERA5 reanalysis product. The human leverage, considered here as population density (PD) and land use (LU), were derived, respectively, from the annual census of the Brazillian Institute of Geography and Statistics (IBGE) and from a Brazilian platform of annual land use/cover mapping (MapBiomas). Recent BA trends considering the drivers FWI, LU and PD, were estimated using the non-parametric Theil-Sen regression and the modified Mann-Kendall test. </p><p>Results showed BA trends over the last 18 years were significant and spatially contrasted along Cerrado: positive trends were found in the north-eastern region (in particular, the most recent agricultural frontier in Brazil: MATOPIBA) whereas the south-western region showed negative trends. PD showed positive trends in all microregions and, similarly, LU obtained positive trends over most of Cerrado. Positive FWI trends were also found over the central and north-eastern regions and FWI was the driver that explained most of BA variance in Cerrado. LU and PD were found to have much more complex relations with BA. Moreover, regarding the seasonal variability of microregions with positive and negative trends, the former were found to begin earlier in June and last longer, indicating that the overall fire season in Cerrado may be extending. </p><p>The approach presented here allows the exploration of recent trends affecting fires, crucial to inform and support better allocation of resources in fire management under current and future conditions.</p><p>The study was funded by Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e Tecnológico, Brazil (CNPQ) through grants 305159/2018-6 and 441971/2018-0. P. Silva is funded by Fundação para a Ciência e a Tecnologia (FCT), grant number SFRH/BD/146646/2019.</p>

The sensitivity of fire activity to interannual climate variability in Victoria, Australia

2019 ◽  
Vol 69 (1) ◽  
pp. 146
Author(s):  
Sarah Harris ◽  
Neville Nicholls ◽  
Nigel Tapper ◽  
Graham Mills
Keyword(s):  
Climate Models ◽  
Fire Management ◽  
Fire Regime ◽  
Maximum Temperature ◽  
Area Burned ◽  
Climate Parameters ◽  
Fire Activity ◽  
Maximum Temperatures ◽  
In Fire ◽  
The Relationship

Climate change is expected to have an impact on fire activity in many regions around the globe.The extent of this can only be determined by first establishing the relationship between climate and fire activity. This study relates observed changes in fire activity in Victoria to observed changes in antecedent and concurrent climate parameters – maximum temperature, rainfall and vapour pressure, using data for 1972–2014. A first-difference approach was adopted to estimate the amount by which the observed changes in the climate parameters would have altered the fire activity in the absence of other confounding effects. This study provides a method for examining the sensitivity of fire activity to changes in climate parameters without the need to consider the complex response of fuel dynamics to future climates and changes in fire regime or fire management. We used stepwise multiple-regression to determine the months whose climate parameters explained much of the variance in the total number of fires (TNF) and area burned in a fire season. The best performing fire–climate models explained almost two-thirds of the variation in year-to-year variability of fire activity. The significant explanatory ability of the fire–climate models established in this study reveals the combination of climate parameters that closely relates to the observed year-to-year changes in fire activity, and this may provide an additional valuable resource for fire management planning. Further, we explored the role changes in climate have had on the trend in fire activity. Natural logarithm of area burned and mean fire size have not significantly increased over the study period, but the TNF has significantly increased. We find that the observed increase in maximum temperatures and decrease in rainfall account for 26% of the observed increase in TNF for the 1972–2014 period. Therefore, most of the upward trend found in fire numbers must be due to factors other than climate (i.e. changes in fire occurrence, reporting/recording, land and fire-management changes). Additionally, this study concludes that total area burned should have also increased significantly due to the observed changes in climate and that improved fire-management practicesmay be offsetting this expected increase in the area burned. Finally, using the relationship established in this study between fire numbers and climate parameters, we estimate that a 2°C increase in mean monthly maximum temperatures could be expected to lead to a 38% increase in fire numbers.

Fire Regime of the Okefenokee Swamp and Its Relation to Hydrological and Climatic Conditions

1993 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 229 ◽  
Author(s):  
ZY Yin
Keyword(s):  
Water Level ◽  
Management Practices ◽  
Fire Regime ◽  
Southern Oscillation ◽  
Climatic Conditions ◽  
Burnt Area ◽  
Enso Events ◽  
Okefenokee Swamp ◽  
Fire Activity ◽  
Complex Ecosystem

A fire record of the Okefenokee Swamp National Wildlife Refuge during the period 1938-1989 was examined in this study. Frequency analysis indicated that fires with burnt area 50% or more of the swamp area have return periods longer than 100 years, much longer than the previously assumed 20-25 year return period. Results of statistical analysis showed that fire activity is significantly related to die water level of the Okefenokee Swamp. Based on this relationship, a potential fire size can be estimated for a given water level. It seemed difficult to prove the link between the fire activity in the Okefenokee Swamp and the El Nino/Southern Oscillation (ENSO) events. However, further analysis revealed that the hydrological condition of the swamp is significantly related to the ENSO events. During the warm events, the Okefenokee Swamp area is wetter than normal; during the cold events, the area is drier than normal, and major fires tend to occur. The investigation of the fire regime may help achieve a better understanding of the effect of fires on the dynamics of this large complex ecosystem. The results are also useful for the refuge managers, especially in the mid- to long-term planning of fire management practices.

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