Harvey Fire Data from Churn Creek Protected Area, west central BC, Canada - IMPD - CACPA001 Harvey, J.; Smith, D.; Veblen, T.T. Harvey, J. Smith, D. Veblen, T.T. PSME Pseudotsuga menziesii (Mirb.) Franco Douglas-fir 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 (Churn Creek Protected Area>LATITUDE 51.45>LONGITUDE -122.292) This study examines spatially variable stand structure and fire-climate relationships at a low elevation forest-grassland ecotone in west central British Columbia, Canada. Fire history reconstructions were based on samples from 92 fire-scarred trees and stand demography from 27 plots collected over an area of about 7 km2. We documented historical chronologies of widespread fires and localized grassland fires between AD 1600 and 1900. Relationships between fire events, reconstructed values of the Palmer Drought Severity Index and annual precipitation were examined using superposed epoch and bivariate event analyses. Widespread fires occurred during warm, dry years and were preceded by multiple anomalously dry, warm years. Localized fires that affected only grassland-proximal forests were more frequent than widespread fires. These localized fires showed a lagged, positive relationship with wetter conditions. The landscape pattern of forest structure provided further evidence of complex fire activity with multiple plots shown to have experienced low, mixed and/or high-severity fires over the last four centuries. We concluded that this forest-grassland ecotone was characterized by fires of mixed-severity, dominated by frequent, low-severity fires punctuated by widespread fires of moderate to high severity. This landscape-level variability in fire-climate relationships and patterns in forest structure has important implications for fire and grassland management in west central British Columbia and similar environments elsewhere. Forest restoration techniques such as prescribed fire and thinning are oftentimes applied at the forest-grassland ecotone on the basis that historically high frequency, low severity fires defined the character of past fire activity. This study provides forest managers and policy makers important information on mixed severity fire activity at a low elevation forest-grassland ecotone, a crucial prerequisite for the effective management of these complex ecosystems. STUDY NOTES: This site was sampled to reconstruct historical fire regimes in the Churn Creek Protect Area (CCPA). Ring-boundary fire scars were assigned to the preceding calendar year. Several metadata files are provided with the FHX file. -999 in any file indicates no data. NCDC-Paleoclimatology https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/data-access/paleoclimatology-data - Bauer Bruce Investigator : Harvey, J. Investigator : Smith, D. Investigator : Veblen, T.T. 2017-04-12 ONLINE Files online, ASCII https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/study/21871 https://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/firehistory/firescar/northamerica/fire-hist-graphs/cacpa001-fire-hist-graph.png https://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/firehistory/firescar/northamerica/cacpa001.txt https://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/firehistory/firescar/northamerica/fire-hist-graphs/cacpa001-fire-hist-graph.pdf https://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/firehistory/firescar/northamerica/cacpa001.fhx https://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/firehistory/firescar/northamerica/fire-hist-graphs/cacpa001-fire-hist-graph.png https://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/firehistory/firescar/northamerica/cacpa001.txt https://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/firehistory/firescar/northamerica/fire-hist-graphs/cacpa001-fire-hist-graph.pdf https://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/firehistory/firescar/northamerica/cacpa001.fhx English https://www.ncdc.noaa.gov/paleo/study/21871 https://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/firehistory/firescar/northamerica/fire-hist-graphs/cacpa001-fire-hist-graph.png https://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/firehistory/firescar/northamerica/cacpa001.txt https://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/firehistory/firescar/northamerica/fire-hist-graphs/cacpa001-fire-hist-graph.pdf https://www1.ncdc.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/firehistory/firescar/northamerica/cacpa001.fhx Harvey, J., Smith, D., Veblen T.T.2017Mixed-severity fire history at a forest-grassland ecotone in west central British Columbia, CanadaEcological Applications START YEAR: 1436 AD * END YEAR: 2011 AD -122.292 51.45 -122.292 51.45