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Simulating Historic Landscape Patterns of Fire in the Southern SIMULATING HISTORIC LANDSCAPE PATTERNS OF FIRE IN THE SOUTHERN APPALACHIAN MOUNTAINS: IMPLICATIONS FOR FIRE HISTORY AND MANAGEMENT A Thesis by ELLEN R. GASS Submitted to the Office of Graduate and Professional Studies of Texas A&M University in partial fulfillment of the requirements for the degree of MASTER OF SCIENCE Chair of Committee, Charles W. Lafon Committee Members, David M. Cairns Fred E. Smeins Head of Department, Vatche Tchakerian August 2014 Major Subject: Geography Copyright 2014 Ellen R. Gass ABSTRACT Fire suppression policies implemented in the early 20th century led to a decrease in fire-associated species and ecosystems in the southern Appalachian Mountains. As managers work towards restoration, a greater understanding of the pre-suppression fire regime is needed. Fire frequency and seasonality can be determined from physical fire records, such as fire scars, but fire size, fire cycle, ignition density, and ignition source are more difficult to ascertain. Using FARSITE, a spatially explicit fire model, I predicted past fire spread in the western Great Smoky Mountains National Park (GSMNP). Results showed a mean pre-suppression fire size of over an order of magnitude larger than fires on current landscape conditions (567 ha vs. 45 ha). Large fire sizes would have encouraged fire-associated vegetation and continuous flammable fuelbeds. In addition, the current lightning ignition rate within the study area resulted in a 120-135 year pre-suppression lightning fire cycle, which indicates that natural fires were influential on the landscape. This fire cycle is shorter than the lightning fire cycle experienced today (approx. 25-30,000 years). Using the mean fire return interval from previous research, I determined the potential contribution of lightning and anthropogenic ignitions to the fire cycle. This contributes to the debate on the importance of lightning versus anthropogenic ignitions to the pre-suppression fire regime. Most importantly, the estimation of mean fire size, fire cycle, and ignition density for lightning and anthropogenically ignited fires may aid federal resource managers as they use lightning ii ignitions and prescribed burns to restore fire-associated ecosystems in the GSMNP and other areas of the southern Appalachians. iii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This work would have been impossible without the support of my advisor, Dr. Charles Lafon. Dr. Lafon, thank you for your guidance, your knowledge, and your availability. Thank you for giving me the freedom with this project to develop as a scientist, while gently steering me in the right direction. I would like to thank my committee, Dr. Cairns and Dr. Smeins, for your time, your guidance, and your patience. I would especially like to thank Stuart Brittain for his help running and troubleshooting FARSITE and Dr. Dan Goldberg for the use of his remote server. Your assistance made this project possible within a reasonable timeline. I would like to acknowledge the biogeography research cluster. Your feedback, encouragement, and friendship have helped make this project the successful and enjoyable experience it has been. I want to say a special thank you to my parents. By making my education a priority my entire life, you taught me both the value and the joy of learning. Thank you for your love and support always. To my sister, thank you for your wisdom on how to navigate graduate school. Thank you for being a sounding board, a shoulder to lean on, and a voice of honesty and reason. I am so blessed to have such an amazing family. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ABSTRACT .......................................................................................................................ii ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS .............................................................................................. iv TABLE OF CONTENTS ................................................................................................... v LIST OF FIGURES ..........................................................................................................vii LIST OF TABLES ............................................................................................................ ix 1. INTRODUCTION .......................................................................................................... 1 1.1 Hypotheses and objectives ............................................................................... 3 2. BACKGROUND ............................................................................................................ 4 2.1 Fire in the southern Appalachian Mountains ................................................... 4 2.2 Vegetation and landscape conditions in the southern Appalachian Mountains........................................................................................................ 5 2.3 Fire regimes in the southern Appalachian Mountains .................................... 10 2.4 Fire frequency and seasonality ....................................................................... 11 2.5 Spatial extent, ignition density, and fire cycle ............................................... 16 2.6 Anthropogenic and lightning ignitions ........................................................... 22 2.7 Re-introduction of fire .................................................................................... 25 3. STUDY AREA ............................................................................................................. 26 4. METHODS ................................................................................................................... 30 4.1 FARSITE ........................................................................................................ 30 4.2 FARSITE limitations and assumptions .......................................................... 32 4.3 FARSITE inputs ............................................................................................. 34 4.4 Fuel models .................................................................................................... 35 4.5 Objective 1: Calibrate FARSITE to accurately model fires in the western GSMNP .......................................................................................................... 37 4.6 Objective 2: Simulate the spatial extent of fires on a pre-suppression landscape ........................................................................................................ 50 v Page 4.7 Objective 3: Estimate the percentage of pre-suppression fire frequency that could be accounted for by lightning and anthropogenic ignitions ................. 61 5. RESULTS ..................................................................................................................... 67 5.1 Spatial extent of fires on pre-suppression landscape...................................... 67 5.2 Total area burned and lightning fire cycle for the study area ......................... 67 5.3 Fire size distribution ....................................................................................... 90 5.4 Ignition density ............................................................................................... 90 5.5 Percentage of pre-suppression lightning fire frequency ................................. 95 6. DISCUSSION .............................................................................................................. 97 6.1 Hypothesis 1: Spatial extent ........................................................................... 97 6.2 Lightning fire cycle ........................................................................................ 98 6.3 Fire size distribution ..................................................................................... 100 6.4 Hypothesis 2: Ignition density ...................................................................... 103 6.5 Ignition source .............................................................................................. 104 6.6 Management ................................................................................................. 106 6.7 Limitations ................................................................................................... 107 6.8 Future research ............................................................................................. 109 7. CONCLUSION .......................................................................................................... 111 REFERENCES ............................................................................................................... 113 vi LIST OF FIGURES FIGURE Page 1 Study area in the western GSMNP ................................................................... 28 2 Location of Indian Grave weather station ........................................................ 39 3 Landscape A fuel model configuration ............................................................ 46 4 Landscape B fuel model configuration ............................................................ 46 5 Landscape C fuel model configuration ............................................................ 47 6 Unsuppressed fires from 1985-2008 within GSMNP that were used to determine simulation durations ........................................................................ 59 7 Mean number of 10 m grid cell fire occurrence count for each 500 meter buffer for the Hx3 landscape ............................................................................ 63 8 Subset study area compared to total study area ...............................................
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