A 1416-year reconstruction of annual, multidecadal, and centennial variability in area burned for ponderosa pine forests of the southern Colorado Plateau region, Southwest USA
The authors reconstructed the historical fire regime of the Colorado Plateau region over the previous 1,416 years to examine changes in the fire regime in response to climate variation, specifically periods of drought, and compare models of area burned and fire frequency in relation to climate before and after approximately 1600 CE.
The authors found no significant difference between their models of fire-climate relationship before and after 1600 CE suggesting that the historical range of variation drawn from fire chronologies from c. 1600 to 1900 CE are useful analogs for current and future restoration and management purposes. The authors also found that a dry year preceeded by a wet year 1-3 years earlier was a strong predictor of fire activity throughout the fire record (572 – 1987 CE). An atypically long fire-free period occurred between 1360 to 1455 CE during an unusually wet period. This was followed by high-severity fires during the Medieval Climate Anomaly in the late fourteenth or fifteenth century likely driven by drought conditions and the increase in fuels from the prior century.
Climate and Fire Linkages
The authors found no significant difference between their models of fire-climate relationship before and after 1600 CE suggesting that the historical range of variation drawn from fire chronologies from c. 1600 to 1900 CE are useful analogs for current and future restoration and management purposes. The authors also found that a dry year preceeded by a wet year 1-3 years earlier was a strong predictor of fire activity throughout the fire record (572 – 1987 CE). An atypically long fire-free period occurred between 1360 to 1455 CE during an unusually wet period. This was followed by high-severity fires during the Medieval Climate Anomaly in the late fourteenth or fifteenth century likely driven by drought conditions and the increase in fuels from the prior century.