Decision Support for Defining Historical Fire Regimes: GIS Based Analytical Tool

Overview of GIS Based Analytical Tool

This ArcIMS presentation allows users to choose multiple fire scar sites from the International Multiproxy Paleofire Database (IMPD) holdings, download fire history data from those sites, and obtain results of statistical analysis for the sites selected, as displayed in tables and graphs.

Getting started:

1. The ArcIMS map shows locations of fire scar sites. Under the Basic Tools tab, use the Zoom In tool to close in on an area of interest.

2. Use the Identify Location to pick a site or the Select Box to draw a square around several sites.

• In addition, there are several other Basic and Advanced Tools that can be used to find and select sites of interest. Please consult the map's "Help" for more information.

3. After selecting the site(s), you will then see a table below the map with metadata for the site(s) selected.

• If you click on the "Data" link next to the site name, a new window will open with a page containing additional metadata, graphics and the fire scar data file (in FHX2 format). The graphs and data files can be downloaded.
• If you check the box at the beginning of the row of one or more sites, then click on the bar at the top of the table that says "Get Selected Data from IMPD Decision Support Tool", the IMPD Decision Support Tool will open in a new window with information and analysis for the chosen site(s). For more information on this, see the next section.

Note: If you encounter an error when the IMPD Decision Support Tool opens in a new window, please contact esutherland@fs.fed.us and provide a list of the sites you attempted to select.

Launch the GIS Based Analytical Tool

Overview of the IMPD Decision Support Tool

The IMPD Decision Support Tool provides metadata and statistical analyses for single and multiple fire scar sites in table format. In addition, the user can view and download the complete metadata that accompanies each data file, as well as the data file, in FHX2 format, and several other types of graphs and data tables.

Fire scar sites selected using the GIS interface or the text interface are summarized in a series of tables, as follows:

1. Metadata Summary includes site information for each site (location, elevation, species), along with links to complete metadata that accompanies each file, and to the fire scar data file, in FHX2 format.

2. Descriptive Statistics table includes beginning and end years, numbers of scar at each site (number of scarred samples, fire scars, all injuries, years with fire) and the percent of years with fire occurrences.

3. Fires by Season table provides information for each site on the position of fire scars within the annual ring - this information can be combined with information on the seasonal timing of radial growth to infer the season during which fires burned. An additional table can be viewed that shows the distribution of fire scars by intra-annual position and percent of trees scarred by year for individual sites.

4. Fire Interval Estimates table shows statistics on fire scars for each site, including the mean and standard deviation, range, fire exceedance intervals and more. A fire index graph for trees scarred can be viewed as well. This graph shows the individual scarred tree samples at a particular site and the dates of the scars for each of these trees, along with a composite fire occurrence chronology.

5. Descriptive Statistics for the Composite Data table presents averages statistics for all the sites selected and includes years, number of scars, percent of scarred years, and a link to the composite data file.

6. Fire Interval Estimates for the Composite Data table contains the same information as the fire interval estimates table, but composited for all of the sites select.

For more complete information on the statistics reported in these tables, and methods of calculation, please see Henri Grissino-Mayer's FHX2 - Software for the Analysis of Fire History from Tree Rings Users Manual.

Please contact esutherland@fs.fed.us with any questions or comments about this project.