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MANAGEMENT and HISTORY of FIRE in WABAKIMI PROVINCIAL PARK, NORTHWESTERN ONTARIO

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MANAGEMENT and HISTORY of FIRE in WABAKIMI PROVINCIAL PARK, NORTHWESTERN ONTARIO MANAGEMENT AND HISTORY OF FIRE iN WABAKIMI PROVINCIAL PARK, NORTHWESTERN ONTARIO Jennifer L. Beverly A thesis submitted in confonnity with the requirements for the Degree of Master of Science in Forestry Graduate Department of Forestry University of Toronto O Copyright by Jennifer L. Beverly 1998 National Library Bibliothéque nationale du Canada Acquisitions and Acquisitions et Bibliographie Services seMces bibliographiques 395 Wellington Street 395, rue Wellington Ottawa ON K1A ON4 OttawaON K1A ON4 Cansda cawa The author has ganted a non- L'auteur a accordé me licence non exclusive licence ailowing the exclusive permettant à la National Library of Canada to Bibliothèque nationale du Canada de reproduce, loan, distribute or seU reproduire, prêter, distribuer ou copies of this thesis in microform, vendre des copies de cette thèse sous paper or electronic formats. la forme de rnicrofiche/nlm, de reproduction sur papier ou sur format électronique. The author retains ownership of the L'auteur conserve la propriété du copyright in this thesis. Neither the droit d'auteur qui protège cette thèse. thesis nor substantid extracts kom it Ni la thèse ni des extraits substantiels may be printed or otherwise de celle-ci ne doivent être imprimés reproduced without the author's ou autrement reproduits sans son permission. autorisation. Management and History of Fie in Wabakimi Provincial Park, Northwestern Ontario Jennifer L. Beverly Master of Science in Forestry 1998 Graduate Department of Forestry, University of Toronto Abstract Ontario's Wabakimi Provincial Park was recentiy expanded to protect a portion of naturally finctioning boreal forest. A fire management strategy reflecting the natural role of fire dl soon be developed. Mitigation of negative impacts resulting from fire-reintroduction requires knowledge of ecosystern charactenstics, £ire processes, and associated historical human influences. Historical fire records provide insight into these issues in this century, and stand age-class distributions facilitate assessments over several centuries. Historical reports show area bumed declined between 1930 and 1970, followed by dramatic increases in recent decades. A stand age-class distribution analysis based on the negative exponentiai mode1 of fire history revealed statistically significantly different fire cycles before (37.0) and after (359.7) 1928. However, hazard rate estimates show an almost linear dectine between 1858 and i948, suggesting considerable naturai temporal variation. This analysis shows that management for specific historical fire cycles in Wabakimi may not be justzed ecologically, econornically, or socially. Acknowledgments 1 gratefiilly acknowledge the assistance provideci to me by my supe~sorycornmittee members, Dr. J. Malcolm and Dr. K. KNght, with special thanks for the support and guidance provided by my supe~sorDr. D.L. Martell, whose consistent demonstration of professionaiism, enlightened insight, and faimess, was an ongoing source of motivation. 1 thank the many skilled professionals at the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources who graciously provided their time and expertise. most notably: Nancy Scott, Dr. Geny Racey, Dave Archibaid, Bob Johnson, Bill Laidlaw, Rob Davis, Paul Ward, and Al Tithecott. 1 aiso thank Sun Hua for her help in extracting data, and my colleagues/fnends Kazi Islam, Greg Williams, and Warren Mabee for their example, encouragement, and interest. Finally, 1 thank my supeMsors and colleagues at the Ranger Lake Initial Attack Base, Sault Ste. Marie Fire Management Area, who supporteci my exposure to the fascinating complexities of fire. ...phare too mail in areu CO relegate to the forces of nature thshoped a continent. Mimagement decisiom of this kind Mvolve judgmmt followed by action. They me not resolved simply by allowing nafural ecosystem procesres to oprate. A Starker Leopold', 1983 Letter hmA. Starker Leopold to Boyd Evison, Supuiatendemt, Sequoia aod Kings Canyon Nationai Parks. California, June 9, 1983. iv Table of Contents Abstract Acknowledgments List of Figures List of Tables Chapter 1. Introduction Chapter 2. Description of Wabakimi Provincial Park 2.1 Ecological Features 2.1.1 Eco-regional Description 2.1.2 Ecological Role of Fire 2.2 Human Influences 2.2.1 Pre-Suppression Era (i) First Nations' Activitics (ü) Exploration and the Fur Trade (iii) Setdement 2.2.2 Suppression Era (i) Evolution of Fire Suppression Poiicy (ii) Evolution of Suppression Force (iii) Transition to the Park Era (iv) Ecological Impacts of Fire Suppression 2.23 Park Era 2.2.4 Quantifjing Human Influences (i) Arca Bumed (ii) Suppression Force (iii) Ignition Source 2.3 Weather 2.3.1 Relationship Between Fire and Weather in Wabakimi 2.3.2 Data 2.3 -3 Methods 2.3.4 Results and Discussion 2.4 Surnmary and Implications for Fire Management in Wabakirni Chapter 3. Stand Age-Class Distribution Analysis 3.1 The Negative Exponential Model of Fire History 3.1.1 Model Developments 3.1 -2 Model Application 3.1 -3 Methodologid Issues (i) Flammability and Age (ii) Homogeneity Criteria (iü) Censorhg 3.1-4 Methodologid Innovations 3.2 Data 3.3 Methods 3 -3.1 Traditionai Methodology 3.3.2 New Methodology (i) Parameter Estimation (ii) Test of Signif~cance (iii) Confidence Intervals (iv) Identification of the Change Point 3.4 Results 3.4.1 Traditional Methodology 3.4.2 New Methodology 3 -4.3 Methodological Issues 3.5 Summary and Implications for Fire Management in Wabakimi Chapter 4. Fire Management in Protected Areas 4.1 Theoretical Issues 4.1.1 Determinhg the Primary Objective (i) Natural Fin Cycles (ii) Nahiral Landscape Mosaic (iii) Alternative Objectives 4.2.1 Incorporating Secondary Objectives 4.2 Practical Issues 4.3 Sornmary and Implication for Fire Management in Wabakimi Chapter 5. Discussion and Recommendations 5.1 Discussion 5 -2 Recornmendations Literature Cited List of Figures Figure 1. Wabakuni Provincial Park, Northwestem Ontario Figure 2. Wabakimi Provincial Park Location in Rowe's (1972) Forest Regions and Sections Figure 3. Wabakimi Provincial Park Location in HiUs' (1959) Site Regions and Districts Figure 4. Wabakimi Provincial Park Land Type Classification 15 Figure 5. Wabakimi Provincial Park Species Composition 15 Figure 6. Boundaries of Ontario Forest Resource Inventory (FM) Management Units (MU) in Wabakirni Provincial Park 17 Figure 7a-e. Wabakimi Provincial Park Land Type Composition by Management Unit 18 Figure 8a-e. Wabakimi Provincial Park Species Composition by Management Unit 19 Figure 9. Ontario Fire Management Zones 30 Figure 10. Wabakirni Provincial Park Boundaries 1983 and 1998 42 Figure 1 1. Wabakirni Provincial Park Average ~nnualArea Bumed by Decade 47 Figure 12. Ontario Average Annual Area Bumed by Decade 48 Figure 13. Wabakirni Percent of Ontario Area Bumed by Decade 49 Figure 14. Minimum Rectangle Study Area 52 Figure 15. Annual Average Response Times: Wabakimi vs. Surrounding Areas 54 Figure 16. Ratio of Annual Average Response Times 54 Figure 17. Spearman Correlation Between Area Burned and DMC 62 Figure 1 8. Time-Since-Fire Distribution 76 Figure 19. WabakiM Provincial Park Age-Class Distribution 102 Figure 20. Wabakimi Provincial Park The-Since-Fire Distribution vüi Figure 2 1. Hypothetical A(t) Figure 22. Hypothetical Xj Figure 23. Hypothetical Sj Figure 24. Masters ( 1 990) Ij Figure 25. Masters (1990) Sj Figure 26. Wabakimi Xj Figure 27. Wabakimi Sj List of Tables Table 1. Percentage of Wabakimi Provincial Park Contained in Each MU Table 2. Response Times: Wabakimi Provincial Park vs. Surrounding Areas Table 3. Ontario Fire Weather Index Classes Table 4. Spearman Correlations Between Area Bumed and Weather Table 5. Results from Larsen and MacDonald (1995) and Balling et al. (1992) Table 6. Area with Negative Ages Due to Compilation Date Adjustment Table 7. Surnmary of Wabakimi Provincial Park Pire Cycle Estimates Table 8. Surnmary of Fire Cycles fiom Previous Studies Chapter 1 Introduction Wabakimi Provincial Park is located approximately 300 km north of Thunder Bay, just northwest of Lake Nipigon, in the boreal forest region of northwestern Ontario (Figure 1). The original designation of the area as a Park occurred on Iune 2, 1983 as a result of Ontario's Strategic Land Use Planning (SLUP) process. In 1992, the Ontario Ministry of Natural Resources (OMNR) initiated a fornial review of the original Wabakimi Provincial Park boundary. Officia1 adoption of the new boundary occurred on luly 25, 1997, increasing the Park's size fiom 155,000 to 892,061 hectares, and making it the second largest provincial park in the province and one of the largest boreal forest parks in the world. The park expansion was premised on the objective of protecting a naturally functioning remnant of the boreal fonst ecosystem. It has been explicitly stated that fire will have a strong ecological role in Wabakimi Provincial Park (referred to hereafter as Wabakimi or the Park). A Fire Management Strategy will be developed and implemented which reflects the natural role of fire in the boreal forest (OMNR 1996). According to the OMMX (1996:4): "While fire suppression will occur in sorne situations, especially where there is risk of loss of hurnan life or serious property damage, wildfues in many situations will be allowed to bu." Fire has a natural and critically important role to play in Wabakimi with regard to ecosystem fùnctioning (Heinselman 1971, Bonan and Shugart 1989, Kronberg and Fyfe 1992, Scotter Figure 1. Wabakimi Provincial Park, Northwestern Ontario. Area 1972, Minshall et al. 1989, Knight et al. l985), as well as species composition, successional patterns, and the landscape mosaic (Johnson 1992, Robinson 1974, Frelich and Reich 1995, Bergeron 199 1). This role has existed in the presence of humans for approxirnately 8,000 years. Human influences on the role of fire in Wabakimi cm be divided into three eras, narnely: Pre-Suppression @re-1928), Suppression ( 1 928- 1982), and the Park Era ( 1 983- present). Europeans may have altered the human-fire relationship in the Pre-Suppression Era by affiing First Nations' activities, and by introducing new sources of ignition, however, massive manipulation of fire by humans most aeiy ocairred with the advent of effective fire suppression.
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