Fire in the Northeast: Learning from the Past, Planning for the Future

Abstract

Fire is an important disturbance process that regulates forest stand structure and species diversity in many ecosystems across the northeastern United States. Fires have promoted the growth and regeneration of shade intolerant genera throughout the Holocene, during which time humans have had a dominant influence on northeastern fire regimes. Humans have used fire for many applications including wildlife management, land clearing, and vegetation maintenance. Fire frequency increased during the periods of Native American occupation and early European colonization, but it has decreased since Native American displacement, colonist farm abandonment, and direct fire suppression, causing shifts in plant community composition toward shade-tolerant, pyrophobic species. Managers need appropriate benchmarks for using prescribed fire for restoration, especially in the face of climatic change. Salient lessons from history are: (a) fire is natural, (b) fire is cultural, (c) fire is economic, and (d) human decisions regarding fire will strongly impact the future of existing ecosystems. Fire, and how we as a society will manage it, must remain at the forefront of political discussions, policy development, and public education, while investment into research must provide the knowledge base for continued adaptive management in the face of an uncertain future.

The legacy of fire: long-term changes to the forest understory from periodic burns in a New England oak-hickory forest

“…This last century has seen the suppression of the dominant fire regime of the original oak-hickory forests of the northeastern United States, resulting in dramatic vegetation shifts across the landscape. Prior to European settlement, much of the upland skeletal glacial till soil and sand plains of major southern New England valleys comprised open woodlands characterized by low-intensity fires at infrequent intervals of 10-20 years (Patterson and Sassaman 1988;Patterson 2006;Guyette et al 2012;Cronon 2011;Poulos 2015). Causes of these periodic fires include lightning ignitions, Indigenous land management practices, and European colonial settlement, the latter of which caused a temporary spike in fire frequency (Patterson and Sassaman 1988;Fuller et al 1998;Poulos 2015;Stambaugh et al 2015;Abrams and Nowacki 2020).…”

“…Prior to European settlement, much of the upland skeletal glacial till soil and sand plains of major southern New England valleys comprised open woodlands characterized by low-intensity fires at infrequent intervals of 10-20 years (Patterson and Sassaman 1988;Patterson 2006;Guyette et al 2012;Cronon 2011;Poulos 2015). Causes of these periodic fires include lightning ignitions, Indigenous land management practices, and European colonial settlement, the latter of which caused a temporary spike in fire frequency (Patterson and Sassaman 1988;Fuller et al 1998;Poulos 2015;Stambaugh et al 2015;Abrams and Nowacki 2020). These surface fires played a role in shaping the vegetative composition of the forests and woodlands of the northeastern United States by promoting fire-adapted, shade-intolerant species such as oaks (Quercus L.…”

“…However, the imposition of fire-suppression policies in the early 1900s removed fire as an ecological driver from the New England landscape, resulting in dramatic vegetation shifts (Brose et al 2001(Brose et al , 2014Hall et al 2002;Nowacki and Abrams 2008;Poulos 2015). As expected from the pre-settlement association between frequent fires and low tree density, modern forest stands are substantially denser than pre-settlement conditions (Brose et al 2001;Hall et al 2002;Nowacki and Abrams 2008;Ryan et al 2013).…”

“…spp.) over the shade-intolerant, fire-adapted species such as oak, hickory, and pine that used to dominate this landscape (Brose et al 2001;Hall et al 2002;Nowacki and Abrams 2008;Kreye et al 2013;Poulos 2015). The impact of this mesophication on overall floristic diversity and richness is more nuanced (Anderson and Schwegman 1991;Nowacki and Abrams 2008).…”

“…Using a before-after-impact-control design, we bring together data on forest structure, soil characteristics, and vegetation to investigate fire-induced changes in understory density, diversity, and composition and to determine how these changes are influenced by structural shifts in the overstory and soil properties following prescribed burns. By introducing periodic, low-intensity burns into an established oak-hickory forest, we attempt to mimic pre-settlement conditions and to better understand the effects of restoring the historical southern New England fire regime (Patterson and Sassaman 1988;Parshall and Foster 2002;Ruffner 2006;Poulos 2015;Abrams and Nowacki 2020).…”