Forest fires in northern Canada (with an introduction by Martin E. Alexander)

Document

Title

Document Type: Journal

Author(s): Robert Bell

Publication Year: 1889

Reprinted 2012

Cataloging Information

Keyword(s):

black spruce; boreal forests; Canada; coniferous forests; European settlement; fire frequency; fire injuries (plants); fire management; fire regimes; fire rotation; First Nations; forest management; historic management; human caused fires; indigenous burning; jack pine; Larix laricina; lightning caused fires; logging; mosaic; mosses; Native Americans; old-growth forests; Ontario; Picea glauca; Picea mariana; Pinus banksiana; second growth forests; seed dispersal; serotiny; spontaneous combustion; succession; tamarack; white spruce; wildfires; wildlife

Topic(s):

Climate; Fire Behavior; Fire Ecology; Fire Effects; Fire History; Fire Occurrence; Fire Prevention; Fuels

Region(s):

International

Partner Site(s):

Applied Fire Behavior

Record Maintained By:

FRAMES Staff; catalog@frames.gov

TTRS Staff; http://talltimbers.org/fire-ecology-comments/

Record Last Modified: June 1, 2018

FRAMES Record Number: 13428

Tall Timbers Record Number: 233, 28341

TTRS Location Status: In-file

TTRS Call Number: Fire File DDW

TTRS Abstract Status: Okay, Fair use, Reproduced by permission

This bibliographic record was either created or modified by the Tall Timbers Research Station and Land Conservancy and is provided without charge to promote research and education in Fire Ecology. The E.V. Komarek Fire Ecology Database is the intellectual property of the Tall Timbers Research Station and Land Conservancy.

Description

A paper read before the American Forestry Congress in Atlanta, Georgia, on 1 December 1888. Reprinted from the Proceedings of the American Forestry Congress, December 1888, Gibson Brothers Printers and Bookbinders, Washington, D.C., with an introduction by Martin E. Alexander. From the introduction: "While Bell held many of the very same biases as the foresters of his generation regarding the 'mindless vandalism' caused by forest fires, he also recognized that fire played a natural role in the ecology of the boreal forest as evident, for example, by his description of the connections between fire, cone serotiny, and stand renewal in jack pine ... One hundred twenty-five years after Dr. Bell’s perceptive words were written, large-scale crown fires continue to significantly influence boreal forest ecosystem dynamics. Slowly but surely, we have come to recognize and appreciate that the attempted exclusion of fire from the boreal forest is in fact neither ecologically desirable nor economically feasible."

Online Link(s):

Link to this document

Citation:

Bell, Robert. 1889 (Reprinted 2012). Forest fires in northern Canada (with an introduction by Martin E. Alexander). Reprinted from Report of the American Forestry Congress, Atlanta Meeting, 1888. Fire Ecology 8(1):1-10.