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Title: Fire's importance in South Central U.S. forests: distribution of fire evidence
Author(s): Rudis, Victor A.; Skinner, Thomas V.
Date: 1991
Source: Fire and the environment: ecological and cultural perspectives; proceedings of an international symposium; 1990 March 20-24; Knoxville, TN.(In GTR-SE69)
Description: Evidence of past fire occurrence is estimated to occur on 26 percent of the 87.2 million acres of forests in Alabama, Arkansas, southeast Louisiana, Mississippi, east Oklahoma, Tennessee, and east Texas.Data are drawn from a systematic survey of fire evidence conducted in conjunction with recent inventories of private and public forested areas in the South Central U.S.Comparison with other estimates of annual average fire frequency by State and by potential causal agent suggests that fire frequency estimates based on evidence observations from forest surveys are credible.Given the widespread extent and distribution of fire evidence presented in this report, one implication is that any changes in fire regulations will have important consequences for forestry in this region.Because survey estimates are linked with location, forest stand, and tree characteristics, forest survey fire data should prove useful for exploring the relationship of past fire occurrence to regional air quality and wildfire danger.With the addition of measurements from a subsample of plots, forest survey fire data could be used to assess fire's impact on the production of water, livestock forage, wildlife habitat, and timber for multi-county and larger areas.
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