Climatic influence on fire regime (1700 to 2008) in the Nazas watershed, Durango, Mexico

Abstract

Background: Fire scars are the primary source of physical evidence used to date past fires around the world, and to estimate parameters of historical fire regimes and fire-climate relationships. Despite an increase in studies about historical fire regimes and the relationship between fire and climate, these studies are still limited for Mexican forests. Our goal was to characterize the historical fire regime in two sites with different elevations, to assess changes in fire frequency, and to determine the relationship between fire regimes and climate patterns in a conifer-dominated forest in the Upper Nazas watershed of the Sierra Madre Occidental, Mexico. We were able to cross-date 50 fire-scarred samples of Pinus arizonica Engelm., P. strobiformis Engelm., P. teocote Schlecht. & Cham., P. durangensis Martínez, and Pseudotsuga menziesii (Mirb.) Franco and identify a total of 596 fire scars. Results: Evidences are compelling evidences on forest fires occurred frequently in the study area, starting in the mid eighteenth century and through the mid twentieth century. The season of fire occurrence was determined for 560 (94%) fire scars. Most fire scars at both of our sampling locations, found at low and high elevation sites, occurred in the spring (525, 93.8%) and only 6.2% occurred in the summer. The mean fire interval and Weibull median fire interval values were < 10 years for all fire-scar filter (all samples, ≥10% and ≥ 25%), and the average per-sample fire interval was < 25 years. Conclusions: Our results suggest fire frequency has changed over time at our study site, becoming less common and less extensive since the 1950s. In addition, extensive fires occurred in dry years as indicated by low precipitation, negative NIÑO 3 Sea Surface Temperature (SST) values, and negative Palmer Drought Severity Index (PDSI) values. Fire frequencies must be maintained within the amplitude of their historical regime, with the objective of reducing the risk of severe fires and preserving ecological and hydrological benefits in the watershed.

Fire History (1896–2013) in an Abies religiosa Forest in the Sierra Norte of Puebla, Mexico

“…In the last three decades, however, this pattern has changed, with surface fires tending to occur early in the year, followed by an extended fire season that includes stand replacing (canopy fires) in April and May [50]. Similar seasonal patterns have been reported for the southwestern United States [51], as well as northern [52][53][54] and central Mexico [47,49,55].…”

Análisis temporal de sequías meteorológicas en la cuenca del Río Yaqui (México) y su relación con ENSO

“…Así mismo, las condiciones de sequía dan paso para que se desarrollen incendios severos que ponen en riesgo la biodiversidad de la zona. Se ha determinado que, el fenómeno climático ENSO en el último siglo está relacionado de manera significativa con los niveles más bajos y altos de reservorios de agua en las presas (Cerano et al, 2011), con la propagación de brotes de plagas (Cervantes et al, 2019) y con el desarrollo de los incendios más severos (Cerano et al, 2019).…”

Anillos de crecimiento de Pinus hartwegii como indicadores de fluctuaciones climáticas y de la influencia de fenómenos océano-atmósfera en la Faja Volcánica Transmexicana

“…Asimismo, han ayudado en la reconstrucción de eventos ambientales como sequías extremas y permitido determinar la frecuencia e intensidad de incendios forestales (Villanueva-Díaz et al, 2015;Aquino-Ramírez et al, 2019;Cerano-Paredes et al, 2019;Carlón, Villanueva, Soto, Mendoza y Macías, 2021; Martínez-Sifuentes, Villanueva-Díaz y Estrada-Ávalos, 2020). Así como en la generación de índices como el de severidad de sequías de Palmer (PDSI) (Cook, Seager, Cane y Stahle, 2007;Stahle et al, 2016) y el índice normalizado de precipitación (SPI) (Stahle et al, 2020).…”