Fire History of a Rimrock Pine Forest at New River Gorge National River, West Virginia

Maxwell, Richard; Hicks, Ray R.

doi:10.3375/043.030.0311

Cited by 6 publications

(7 citation statements)

References 10 publications

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“…), anthropogenic activities also had a strong influence on fire activity over the past several centuries (e.g., Huffman et al. , Maxwell and Hicks , Flatley et al. , Stambaugh et al.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Historical fire in longleaf pine (Pinus palustris) forests of south Mississippi and its relation to land use and climate

White

Harley

2016

Ecosphere

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Abstract. We characterized historical fire regimes in Pinus palustris (longleaf pine) forests of southern Mississippi with regard to global and regional coupled climate systems (e.g., El Niño-Southern Oscillation) and past human activity. The composite fire chronology spanned 1756-2013 with 132 individual scars representing 89 separate fire events. The mean fire interval was 2.9 yr, and mean intervals were significantly different between identified time periods (e.g., settlement period vs. management period). Evidence of biannual fire activity (up to three fires occurring within a 12-to 15-month period) was found coeval with a peak in livestock grazing and logging from the 1850s through the 1880s. Connections were also found between historical fire and Pacific climate variability (e.g., El Niño-Southern Oscillation and Pacific Decadal Oscillation; P < 0.05), yet the fire-climate linkage was likely at least partially masked by substantial human land use activities over the past several centuries. Coupled climate and human land use activity controlled the historical fire regime over the past ca. 240 yr. Although the many fire adaptions of P. palustris yield limitations in tree-ring-based fire history studies (e.g., thick bark), we highlight the efficacy of considering the height at which fire scars are analyzed along the bole as a way to glean a more accurate depiction of historical fire occurrence, especially in ecosystems characterized by a frequent, lowseverity fire regime. This study suggests growing-season fire prescribed at a 2-to 3-yr interval would be the first step toward simulating historical landscape conditions and fire activity, should that be the goal by land managers.

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“…), anthropogenic activities also had a strong influence on fire activity over the past several centuries (e.g., Huffman et al. , Maxwell and Hicks , Flatley et al. , Stambaugh et al.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Historical fire in longleaf pine (Pinus palustris) forests of south Mississippi and its relation to land use and climate

White

Harley

2016

Ecosphere

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“…Before 1970, the Hite Fork and Wall Fork fire regimes were similarly characterized by frequent fire, occurring almost exclusively during the dormant season. Filtered MFI was approximately 7-8 years during the Boom and Bust era , which is slightly longer than the approximately 5-year MFI observed at two mixed pine-oak sites at the New River Gorge in nearby Fayette County, West Virginia during a similar time period (Maxwell and Hicks 2010;Saladyga 2017). The majority of pine or mixed pine-oak sites in the CHF have a comparable pre-fire exclusion or industrial era MFI of less than 12 years (e.g., Hessl et al 2011;Aldrich et al 2014;Howard et al 2021), with some shorter intervals (3-4 years) on the Appalachian (Hutchinson et al 2019), Cumberland (Stambaugh et al 2020), andOzark (Guyette et al 2006) Plateaus.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 71%

Fire history and vegetation data reveal ecological benefits of recent mixed-severity fires in the Cumberland Mountains, West Virginia, USA

2022

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Background Without periodic fire, fire-adapted plant communities across the Central Hardwood Forest Region (CHF) in the USA have undergone significant changes in forest structure and species composition, most notably a decrease in oak regeneration and herbaceous diversity and an increase in shade-tolerant, fire-sensitive tree species. In this study, we conducted a comparative analysis of two mixed pine-oak (Pinus-Quercus) forests with different land management histories in the Cumberland Mountains of southern West Virginia where fire ecology and fire effects are understudied. We reconstructed the fire history of both sites from fire-scarred shortleaf pine (Pinus echinata Mill.) and pitch pine (Pinus rigida Mill.) trees to describe variation in the fire regimes over time. We also made plant community measurements that spatially coincided with fire-scarred pines to assess present-day plant community structure in relation to recent fire history. Results Before 1970, fires at Hite Fork and Wall Fork occurred frequently and almost exclusively in the dormant season, every 7–8 years on average. The fire regimes diverged in the Post-Industrial era (1970–2020), during which there was a single fire at Wall Fork, while six major fires, scarring more than 40% of sampled trees, occurred between 1985 and 2017 at Hite Fork. Four of these dormant-season fires correspond to late fall incendiary fires in the observational record. These differences in recent fire history had large effects on plant community structure. Recent mixed-severity fires at Hite Fork likely caused mortality of pole-sized trees and opened the canopy, creating conditions favorable for pine recruitment and resulted in significantly higher species richness in the herbaceous layer compared to Wall Fork, which exhibited the effects of mesophication. Conclusions Our results suggest that frequent mixed-severity fire in pine-oak forests of the Cumberland Mountains can meet management objectives by reducing mesophytic tree abundance, increasing herbaceous diversity and pine recruitment, and generally promoting forest heterogeneity.

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“…Maxwell and Hicks (2010) noted a general cessation of fires along the Endless Wall section of the New River Gorge following the closure of the Nuttalburg Mine (1952) and associated train depot (1966). The last major fire occurred in 1953 at a site on North Fork Mountain in Pendleton County, West Virginia, approximately 150 km to the northeast of the present study (Hessl et al 2011).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…I hypothesized that a significant increase in the annual growth variability (i.e., sensitivity) of pitch pine would mark a transition to the industrial era, during which frequent fire (Maxwell and Hicks 2010) and logging (Peters and Carden 1926) have been documented in the area. I expected that annual growth variability should then decrease during industrial decline, a period characterized by depopulation and fire exclusion (Stahlgren et al 2007;Maxwell and Hicks 2010).…”

Section: Field Laboratory and Analysis Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Dormant season scars were assigned to the previous calendar year in order to remain consistent with nearby fire history studies (Maxwell and Hicks 2010;Hessl et al 2011). Fire scar data were entered in the Fire History Analysis and Exploration System (FHAES) (Grissino-Mayer 2001b; Sutherland et al 2015) and summary statistics were generated.…”

Section: Field Laboratory and Analysis Methodsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Forest Disturbance History from ‘Legacy’ Pitch Pine (Pinus rigida) at the New River Gorge, West Virginia

Saladyga

2017

Natural Areas Journal

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Fire History of a Rimrock Pine Forest at New River Gorge National River, West Virginia

Cited by 6 publications

References 10 publications

Historical fire in longleaf pine (Pinus palustris) forests of south Mississippi and its relation to land use and climate

Historical fire in longleaf pine (Pinus palustris) forests of south Mississippi and its relation to land use and climate

Fire history and vegetation data reveal ecological benefits of recent mixed-severity fires in the Cumberland Mountains, West Virginia, USA

Forest Disturbance History from ‘Legacy’ Pitch Pine (Pinus rigida) at the New River Gorge, West Virginia

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