Héon fire data from northern boreal forest of eastern Canada - IMPD CARBB001 Heon, J.; Arseneault, D.; Parisien, M-A. Heon, J. Arseneault, D. Parisien, M-A. LALA Larix laricina (Du Roi) K. Koch tamarack eastern larch PCMA Picea mariana (Mill.) Britton, Sterns, & Poggenb. black spruce PIBN Pinus banksiana Lamb. jack pine earth science/paleoclimate/fire history|tree ring (tree demographic and injury and fire event code,wood,null,null,null,fire history|tree ring,null,null,C,FHX2 data format; refer to IMPD documentation for description of codes) earth science/paleoclimate/fire history|tree ring (age,null,null,null,null,fire history|tree ring,null,null,N,null) earth science/paleoclimate/fire history (Northern boreal forest of eastern Canada>LATITUDE >LONGITUDE ) Boreal ecosystems and their large carbon stocks are strongly shaped by extensive wildfires. Coupling of climate projections with records of area burned over the last 3 decades across the North American boreal zone suggests that area burned will increase by 30-500% by the end of the 21th century, with cascading impacts on ecosystem dynamics and on the boreal carbon balance. Fire size and the frequency of large-fire years are expected to increase. However, how fire size and time since previous fire will influence future burn rates is poorly understood, mostly due to incomplete records of past fire overlaps. Here, we reconstruct the length of overlapping fires along a 190-km long transect over the last 200 years in one of the most fire-prone boreal regions of North America in order to document how fire size and time since previous fire will influence future fire recurrence. We provide direct field evidence that extreme burn rates can be sustained by a few occasional droughts triggering immense fires. However, we also show that the most fire-prone areas of the North American boreal forest are resistant to high burn rates due to overabundant young forest stands, thereby creating a fuel-mediated negative feedback on fire activity. These findings will help refine projections of fire impacts on boreal ecosystems and their large carbon stocks. STUDY NOTES: Supporting Dataset S1 of the article: Resistance of the boreal forest to high burn rates submitted to PNAS. Authors: Jessie Héon, Dominique Arseneault, Marc-André Parisien Author affiliations: Héon and Arseneault: Département de biologie, chimie et géographie, Centre d’Études Nordiques, Université du Québec à Rimouski, Rimouski (Québec), Canada, G5L 3A1. Parisien: Northern Forestry Centre, Canadian Forest Service, Natural Resources Canada, Edmonton, Alberta, Canada, T6H 3S5 Corresponding author: Dominique Arseneault Email: dominique_arseneault@uqar.ca Description: Dataset S1 (available with the publication, and at: http://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/firehistory/firescar/northamerica/supplemental/carbb001-pnas2014-09316dataset-s1.csv ) contains fire dates estimated from tree ring analysis of fire scars and tree establishment dates collected in the fire-prone, unmanaged northern boreal forest of eastern Canada. The study has been designed so as to reconstruct the extent of wildfires that have overlapped over the last 200-300 years along a 190-km transect. The transect corresponds to the James Bay road in northern Québec and is subdivided into 93 cells of about 2 km2. Samples are trunk cross-section mostly taken on fire-scarred trees, or to a lesser degree, near the base of unscarred specimen. Note: On September 23, 2014, carbb001.txt, carbb001-pnas2014-09316dataset-s1.csv, and carbb001-pnas2014-09316dataset-s1.xls were modified as follows: Colorado spruce and blue spruce were replaced with black spruce; Picea pungens Engelman was replaced with Picea mariana (Mill.) BSP.; PCPU was replaced with PCMA. The complete fire record is provided by Fig. S3 and Dataset S1. Note: When using the data, please contact authors to avoid duplicating ongoing analyses. Dating Method: Crossdated NOAA/IMPD web page for this fire history site is available at: https://ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/study/17054 IMPD code: CARBB001 Contributors: Héon,J.;Arseneault,D.;Parisien,M-A. Region: eastern Canada First year: 1611 Last year: 2008 Name of site: Northern boreal forest of eastern Canada Country: Canada State: Quebec NCDC-Paleoclimatology https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/data-access/paleoclimatology-data - Bauer Bruce Investigator : Heon, J. Investigator : Arseneault, D. Investigator : Parisien, M-A. 2014-08-11 ONLINE Files online, ASCII https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/study/17054 https://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/firehistory/firescar/northamerica/supplemental/carbb001-pnas2014-09316dataset-s1.xls https://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/firehistory/firescar/northamerica/supplemental/carbb001-pnas2014-09316dataset-s1.csv https://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/firehistory/firescar/northamerica/carbb001.txt https://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/firehistory/firescar/northamerica/supplemental/carbb001-pnas2014-09316dataset-s1.xls https://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/firehistory/firescar/northamerica/supplemental/carbb001-pnas2014-09316dataset-s1.csv https://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/firehistory/firescar/northamerica/carbb001.txt English https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/study/17054 https://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/firehistory/firescar/northamerica/supplemental/carbb001-pnas2014-09316dataset-s1.xls https://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/firehistory/firescar/northamerica/supplemental/carbb001-pnas2014-09316dataset-s1.csv https://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/firehistory/firescar/northamerica/carbb001.txt Jessie Héon, Dominique Arseneault, Marc-André Parisien2014Resistance of the boreal forest to high burn ratesProceedings of the National Academy of Sciences START YEAR: 1611 AD * END YEAR: 2008 AD -77.75061 52.325758 -77.086826 53.708418