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We conducted a detailed investigation of fire frequencies, patterns of fire spread, and the effects of fire on tree succession in the western larch - lodgepole pine (Larix occidentalis - Pinus contorta var. latifolia) forests west of the Continental Divide in Glacier National Park, Montana. Master fire chronologies for 1650 to the present were constructed based on tree fire scars and fire-initiated age-classes. Two kinds of primeval fire regimes were identified: (i) a mixed-severity regime ranging from nonlethal underburns to stand-replacing fires at mean intervals of 25-75 years and (ii) a regime of infrequent stand-replacing fires at mean intervals of 140-340 years. The former regime is characteristic of the North Fork Flathead valley and appears to be linked to a relatively dry climate and gentler topography compared with the McDonald Creek - Apgar Mountains and Middle Fork Flathead areas, where the latter fire regime predominates. Fire frequency in the entire North Fork study area was 20 fire years per century prior to 1935 and 2 per century after 1935. In the other two study areas it was 3-5 per century both before and after 1935. We suggest that fire suppression has altered the primeval fire regime in the North Fork, but not in the central and southern areas.
Cataloging Information
- age classes
- age-class analysis
- biogeography
- catastrophic fires
- climatology
- coniferous forests
- cover type
- dendrochronology
- distribution
- drought
- ecosystem dynamics
- fire frequency
- fire regimes
- fire scar analysis
- fire spread
- fire suppression
- forest management
- Glacier National Park
- heavy fuels
- Larix occidentalis
- lodgepole pine
- master fire chronology
- mixed-severity fire regime
- moisture
- Montana
- Montana
- mosaic
- mountains
- national parks
- Picea engelmannii
- pine forests
- Pinus contorta
- precipitation
- Pseudotsuga menziesii
- sloping terrain
- stand-replacing fire
- succession
- Thuja plicata
- topography
- tree succession
- Tsuga heterophylla
- western larch
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