Management of natural landscapes requires knowledge of key disturbance processes and their effects. Fire and forest histories provide valuable insight into how fire and vegetation varied and interacted in the past. I constructed multi-century fire chronologies for 10 sites on six mountain ranges representative of the eastern Great Basin (USA), a region in which historic fire information was lacking. I also constructed tree recruitment chronologies for two sites. I use these chronologies to address three research foci. First, using fire-scar data from four heterogeneous sites, I assert that mean fire interval (MFI) values calculated from composite chronologies provide suitable estimates of point MFI (PMFI) when sample area size is ≈&frac; ha. I also suggest that MFI values for single trees can be used to estimate PMFI after applying a correction factor. Next, I infer climate effects on regional fire patterns using 10 site chronologies and tree-ring-based indices of drought and of El Niño Southern Oscillation (ENSO) and Pacific Decadal Oscillation ([PDO), Pacific Ocean surface temperature variability known to affect North American climate. Regional fire years (≥33% of recording sites) were synchronized by wet-dry cycles where the probability of occurrence was highest in the first year of drought following a wet phase and lowest when climate conditions transitioned from dry to wet. Regional fire probability was highest when ENSO and PDO were negative (Southwest pattern). Local fire years occurred under a broad range of conditions. Fire seasonality was bimodal with early and late-season fires dominant. I imply that Native American burning practices were responsible for differences in historic and modern fire seasonality. Lastly, I assess fire regime and tree recruitment variability within two fire-sheds. PMFI varied more than 10-fold within each site. A mixed-severity regime was dominant. A majority (>60%) of fires were small (<10 ha) but together accounted for a minor proportion of area burned. Recruitment pulses varied spatially from stand to landscape-scales and were often synchronous with multi-decade, fire-quiescent periods. I recommend that management strategies employ fire and fire-surrogate treatments to restore disturbance processes to these and similar landscapes at spatial and temporal scales consistent with the historic record.

Fire is the primary natural disturbance vital to the ecological integrity of Quetico Provincial Park, Ontario, Canada. A new provincial park planning process (i.e., Class Environmental Assessment) has required the review of Quetico’s Fire Management Plan. To support this review, large and severe (stand-replacing) Quetico fires were studied using 1966 Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources (OMNR) forest resource inventory (FRI) mapping. A Geographic Information Systems (GIS) database of the FRI was created and updated with the OMNR digital fire atlas. This database was used as a time-since-fire and fire interval dataset to estimate fire frequency. It also served to archive the 1966 FRI for the largest protected area in the transition between the Boreal and Great Lakes-St. Lawrence forest regions. Non-parametric (Kaplan-Meier) survival analysis was used to estimate survival functions and mean fire intervals (i.e., the expected time between two consecutive stand-replacing fires for any location within the Park). Previous studies that have used Kaplan-Meier survival analysis methods have based fire frequency estimates solely on time-since-fire data. However, time-since-fire data cannot be equated with fire interval data when using non-parametric methods. At least one fire interval is required to obtain reliable results. The mean fire interval for the entire 475,782 ha Park between the years 1668 and 2007 was 230 years. Performing the analysis on various geographic and temporal partitions revealed fire frequency spatial and temporal variability. A constant (independent of time-since-fire) probability of burning was not observed for Quetico which is contrary to accepted conjecture for northwestern Ontario boreal/mixed-wood forests. A current fire cycle was also estimated for the Park (342 years) using the digital fire atlas. The results suggested that use of historical static fire frequency estimates as fire management prescriptions may not be justified given considerable fire frequency temporal variability. The observed fire frequency spatial variability suggests that studies should be undertaken at coarser scales than is the norm to characterise the regions fire regime in support of landscape level fire management planning.

Fire is the primary natural disturbance vital to the ecological integrity of Quetico Provincial Park, Ontario, Canada. A new provincial park planning process (i.e., Class Environmental Assessment) has required the review of Quetico’s Fire Management Plan. To support this review, large and severe (stand-replacing) Quetico fires were studied using 1966 Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources (OMNR) forest resource inventory (FRI) mapping. A Geographic Information Systems (GIS) database of the FRI was created and updated with the OMNR digital fire atlas. This database was used as a time-since-fire and fire interval dataset to estimate fire frequency. It also served to archive the 1966 FRI for the largest protected area in the transition between the Boreal and Great Lakes-St. Lawrence forest regions. Non-parametric (Kaplan-Meier) survival analysis was used to estimate survival functions and mean fire intervals (i.e., the expected time between two consecutive stand-replacing fires for any location within the Park). Previous studies that have used Kaplan-Meier survival analysis methods have based fire frequency estimates solely on time-since-fire data. However, time-since-fire data cannot be equated with fire interval data when using non-parametric methods. At least one fire interval is required to obtain reliable results. The mean fire interval for the entire 475,782 ha Park between the years 1668 and 2007 was 230 years. Performing the analysis on various geographic and temporal partitions revealed fire frequency spatial and temporal variability. A constant (independent of time-since-fire) probability of burning was not observed for Quetico which is contrary to accepted conjecture for northwestern Ontario boreal/mixed-wood forests. A current fire cycle was also estimated for the Park (342 years) using the digital fire atlas. The results suggested that use of historical static fire frequency estimates as fire management prescriptions may not be justified given considerable fire frequency temporal variability. The observed fire frequency spatial variability suggests that studies should be undertaken at coarser scales than is the norm to characterise the regions fire regime in support of landscape level fire management planning.