Turn Point - USWTP001
Bakker, Jonathan,D.;Jones,Ellen;Sprenger,Carson,B.

Dating method: crossdated

Sample storage location: Bureau of Land Management, Lopez Island Office, 37 Washburn Place, Lopez, WA

Reference:
Bakker, Jonathan D.; Jones, Ellen; Sprenger, Carson B. In press. Evidence of a historical frequent, low-severity fire regime in western Washington, USA. Canadian Journal of Forest Research. DOI 10.1139/cjfr-2018-0354. 

Abstract: 
Fire is a common disturbance in many forests.  We conducted a fire history study on 40 Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii) trees from two sites, Kellett Bluff and Turn Point, in the San Juan Islands of Washington state, USA.  In total, 146 fire scars were identified and dated, representing 34-35 fires per site.  Fires occurred between 1565 and 1964.  Individual trees recorded up to 10 fires.  The composite mean fire interval (MFI) was 11-13 years over the entire study period and 6 years in the historical period (1780-1895).  These sites were structured by frequent, low-severity fires, yet supported a tree component for centuries - the oldest tree in this study was more than 500 years old.  A program of frequent, low-severity fire may be critical for their long-term persistence.  Comparisons of fire history data among these and five other local sites indicate frequent fires but little synchronicity; the MFI was 4 years but most fires were only recorded at single sites.  Although forests west of the Cascade Mountains are often described as subject to infrequent, high-severity fires, these results highlight the need for a more refined understanding of historical fire regimes in this region.

NOAA/IMPD web landing page for this fire history site is available at:
https://ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/study/26332

NOAA/IMPD DIF and JSON metadata records for this fire history site are available at:
https://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/metadata/published/paleo/dif/xml/noaa-fire-26332.xml and https://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/metadata/published/paleo/json/noaa-fire-26332.json

FHX filename: uswtp001.fhx

IMPD code: USWTP001

Name of site: Turn Point

Site code: WTP

Contributors: Bakker, Jonathan,D.;Jones,Ellen;Sprenger,Carson,B.

Latitude: 48.689 (WGS 84) (WGS84)

Longitude: -123.237000 (WGS84)

Mean elevation: 55 (meters)

Country: United States

State: Washington

Region: Northwest

First year: 1616 AD

Last year: 2010 AD

Species name: Pseudotsuga menziesii [PSME]

Funding agency names and grant numbers: 
Bureau of Land Management[L10AC20404]

Comments:
This site was sampled as part of a project to reconstruct historical fire regimes at two sites in the San Juan Islands.

Ring-boundary fire scars were assigned to the preceding calendar year.

Tree-ring data for this site also available in the ITRDB, site code WA149

Ring-boundary fire scars were assigned to the preceding calendar year.

Fire History Graphs: Fire History Graphs illustrate specific years when fires occurred and how many trees were scarred. They are available in both PDF and PNG formats. The graphs consist of 2 parts, both of which show the X axis (time line) at the bottom with the earliest year of information on the left and the latest on the right. The Fire Index Plot is the topmost plot, and shows two variables: sample depth (the number of recording trees in each year) as a blue line along the left Y axis, compared with the percent trees scarred shown as gray bars along the right Y axis. Below, the Fire Chronology Plot consists of horizontal lines representing injuries by year on individual sampled trees. Symbols are overlain that denote the years containing the dendrochronologically-dated fire scars or injuries. The sample ID of each tree is displayed to the right of each line. The Composite Axis below represents the composite information from all individual series. The symbols used to represent the fire scars or injuries, and the filters used to determine the composite information, are shown in the legend. These graphs were created using the Fire History Analysis and Exploration System (FHAES). See http://www.fhaes.org for more information.