# O'Connor fire data from Pinalenos_F14, Southeast Arizona - IMPD USF14001 #----------------------------------------------------------------------- # World Data Service for Paleoclimatology, Boulder # and # NOAA Paleoclimatology Program # National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) #----------------------------------------------------------------------- # Template Version 4.0 # Encoding: UTF-8 # NOTE: Please cite original publication, NOAA Landing Page URL, dataset and publication DOIs (where available), and date accessed when using downloaded data. If there is no publication information, please cite investigator, study title, NOAA Landing Page URL, and date accessed. # # Description/Documentation lines begin with # # Data lines have no # # # NOAA_Landing_Page: https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/paleo-search/study/36528 # Landing_Page_Description: NOAA Landing Page of this file's parent study, which includes all study metadata. # # Study_Level_JSON_Metadata: https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/pub/data/metadata/published/paleo/json/noaa-fire-36528.json # Study_Level_JSON_Description: JSON metadata of this file's parent study, which includes all study metadata. # # Data_Type: Fire History # # Dataset_DOI: # # Science_Keywords: # #-------------------- # Resource_Links # # Data_Download_Resource: https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/firehistory/firescar/northamerica/usf14001.fhx # Data_Download_Description: Data - Fire History Exchange File (FHX); Pinalenos_F14 Fire Scar Data # # Data_Download_Resource: https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/firehistory/firescar/northamerica/usf14001-noaa.txt # Data_Download_Description: Metadata - NOAA Template File; Pinalenos_F14 Fire Scar Metadata #-------------------- # Contribution_Date # Date: 2022-05-20 #-------------------- # File_Last_Modified_Date # Date: 2022-05-20 #-------------------- # Title # Study_Name: O'Connor fire data from Pinalenos_F14, Southeast Arizona - IMPD USF14001 #-------------------- # Investigators # Investigators: O'Connor, Christopher,C.D.(0000-0002-7284-0688) #-------------------- # Description_Notes_and_Keywords # Description: # This dataset was contributed as part of the North American Tree-ring Fire Scar Synthesis (NAFSS) project (https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/paleo-search/study/34853). Data were contributed to the project from the original data generators. # # Sample Storage Location: Laboratory of Tree-Ring, University of Arizona # Dating Method: Dated # Related ITRDB_Chronology: Not Applicable # # Fire scar data from this site are available in FHX2 format at: # https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/firehistory/firescar/northamerica/usf14001.fhx # along with associated metadata at: # https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/firehistory/firescar/northamerica/usf14001-noaa.txt # #------------------ # Funding_Agency # Funding_Agency_Name: # Grant: #-------------------- # Publication # Authors: O'Connor, Christopher D; Falk, Donald A; Lynch, Ann M; Swetnam, Thomas W # Published_Date_or_Year: 2014 # Published_Title: Fire severity, size, and climate associations diverge from historical precedent along an ecological gradient in the Pinale\~no Mountains, Arizona, USA # Journal_Name: Forest Ecology and Management # Volume: 329 # Edition: # Issue: # Pages: 264-278 # Report_Number: # DOI: 10.1016/j.foreco.2014.06.032 # Publication_Place: # Publisher: # ISBN: # Online_Resource: # Other_Reference_Details: # Full_Citation: # Abstract: # In recent decades fire size and severity have been increasing in high elevation forests of the American Southwest. Ecological outcomes of these increases are difficult to gauge without an historical context for the role of fire in these systems prior to interruption by Euro-American land uses. Across the gradient of forest types in the Pinaleño Mountains, a Sky Island system in southeast Arizona that experienced two relatively large high-severity fires in the last two decades, we compared fire characteristics and climate associations before and after the onset of fire exclusion to determine the degree of similarity between past and recent fires. We use a gridded fire scar and demography sampling network to reconstruct spatially explicit estimates of fire extent and burn severity, as well as climate associations of fires from individual site to landscape scales from 1640 to 2008 C.E. We found that patterns of fire frequency, size, and severity were relatively stable for at least several centuries prior to 1880. A combination of livestock grazing and active fire suppression after circa 1880 led to (1) a significant reduction in fire spread but not fire ignition, (2) a conversion of more than 80% of the landscape from a frequent, low to mixed-severity fire regime to an infrequent mixed to high-severity fire regime, and (3) an increase in fuel continuity within a mid-elevation zone of dry mixed-conifer forest, resulting in increased opportunities for surface and crown fire spread into higher elevation mesic forests. The two most recent fires affecting mesic forests were associated with drought and temperature conditions that were not exceptional in the historical record but that resulted in a relative proportion of high burn severity up to four times that of previous large fires. The ecological effects of these recent fires appear to be more severe than any fire in the reconstructed period, casting uncertainty upon the recovery of historical species composition in high-severity burn patches. Significant changes to the spatial pattern, frequency, and climate associations of spreading fires after 1880 suggest that limits to fuel loading and fuel connectivity sustained by frequent fire have been removed. Coinciding factors of high fuel continuity and fuel loading, projected lengthening of the fire season, and increased variability in seasonal precipitation suggest that large high-severity fires, especially in mixed-conifer forests, will become the predominant fire type without aggressive actions to reduce fuel continuity and restore fire-resilient forest structure and species composition. # #-------------------- # Publication # Authors: O'Connor, C. D., Falk, D. A., Lynch, A. M., Swetnam, T. W., & Wilcox, C. P. # Published_Date_or_Year: 2017 # Published_Title: Disturbance and productivity interactions mediate stability of forest composition and structure # Journal_Name: Ecological Applications # Volume: 27 # Edition: 3.0 # Issue: # Pages: 900-915 # Report_Number: # DOI: https://doi.org/10.1002/eap.1492 # Publication_Place: # Publisher: # ISBN: # Online_Resource: # Other_Reference_Details: # Full_Citation: # Abstract: # Fire is returning to many conifer-dominated forests where species composition and structure have been altered by fire exclusion. Ecological effects of these fires are influenced strongly by the degree of forest change during the fire-free period. Response of fire-adapted species assemblages to extended fire-free intervals is highly variable, even in communities with similar historical fire regimes. This variability in plant community response to fire exclusion is not well understood; however, ecological mechanisms such as individual species’ adaptations to disturbance or competition and underlying site characteristics that facilitate or impede establishment and growth have been proposed as potential drivers of assemblage response. We used spatially explicit dendrochronological reconstruction of tree population dynamics and fire regimes to examine the influence of historical disturbance frequency (a proxy for adaptation to disturbance or competition), and potential site productivity (a proxy for underlying site characteristics) on the stability of forest composition and structure along a continuous ecological gradient of pine, dry mixed-conifer, mesic mixed-conifer, and spruce–fir forests following fire exclusion. While average structural density increased in all forests, species composition was relatively stable in the lowest productivity pine-dominated and highest productivity spruce–fir-dominated sites immediately following fire exclusion and for the next 100 years, suggesting site productivity as a primary control on species composition and structure in forests with very different historical fire regimes. Species composition was least stable on intermediate productivity sites dominated by mixed-conifer forests, shifting from primarily fire-adapted species to competition-adapted, fire-sensitive species within 20 years of fire exclusion. Rapid changes to species composition and stand densities have been interpreted by some as evidence of high-severity fire. We demonstrate that the very different ecological process of fire exclusion can produce similar changes by shifting selective pressures from disturbance-mediated to productivity-mediated controls. Restoring disturbance-adapted species composition and structure to intermediate productivity forests may help to buffer them against projected increasing temperatures, lengthening fire seasons, and more frequent and prolonged moisture stress. Fewer management options are available to promote adaptation in forest assemblages historically constrained by underlying site productivity. # #-------------------- # Site_Information # Site_Name: Pinalenos_F14 - IMPD USF14001 # Location: North America>United States Of America>Arizona # Northernmost_Latitude: 32.71497 # Southernmost_Latitude: 32.71497 # Easternmost_Longitude: -109.933548 # Westernmost_Longitude: -109.933548 # Elevation_m: 2899 #-------------------- # Data_Collection # Collection_Name: USF14001 # First_Year: 1700 # Last_Year: 1978 # Time_Unit: CE # Core_Length_m: # Parameter_Keywords: fire scar dates # Notes: #-------------------- # Species # Species_Name: Pinus strobus L. # Common_Name: eastern white pine # Common_Name: Weymouth pine # Tree_Species_Code: PIST # Tree_Species_Download_Resource: https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/templates/tree-species-code.csv # Tree_Species_Download_Description: List of accepted tree species names and codes. #-------------------- # Species # Species_Name: Pinus ponderosa Douglas ex C. Lawson # Common_Name: ponderosa pine # Common_Name: western yellow pine # Tree_Species_Code: PIPO # Tree_Species_Download_Resource: https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/templates/tree-species-code.csv # Tree_Species_Download_Description: List of accepted tree species names and codes. #-------------------- # Chronology Information: # Chronology: # #-------------------- # Variables # # PaST_Thesaurus_Download_Resource: https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/PaST-thesaurus/SKOS/past-thesaurus-v1.0.rdf # PaST_Thesaurus_Download_Description: Paleoenvironmental Standard Terms (PaST) Thesaurus terms, definitions, and relationships in SKOS format. # # Short_name what,material,error,units,seasonality,data_type,detail,method,data_format,additional_information # ## age_ce age,,,year Common Era,,FIRE HISTORY;TREE RING,,,N, ## tree_events tree demographic and injury and fire event code,wood,,,,FIRE HISTORY;TREE RING,,,C,FHX2 data format; refer to IMPD documentation for description of codes # #-------------------- # Data: # To access data, use Data_Download_Resource links above.