Wildfire Wednesdays #124: The Language of Wildfire

Happy Wednesday, Coalition community.

Language has always fascinated me, especially regional dialects - these variations of the same language that develop over time and differ, sometimes significantly, because they are built by the unique environment, activities, and influence on any one area. Native speakers of the same language may yet encounter a language barrier if they grew up learning different dialects!

The language of wildfire is not so different. Individuals who have been steeped in this terminology are well versed to understand and speak it easily, while ‘fire speak’ can sound pretty foreign and unintelligible to folks who haven’t encountered it before. Today’s Wildfire Wednesday seeks to simplify and explain this language and the way we use it so that we all have access to the same common lexicon, knowing that effective communications build support for sound wildfire policies.

Today’s Wildfire Wednesday features:

• Basic fire terminology

• Techniques for fire communication

• Resources and opportunities

Be well and stay warm,

Rachel

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Basic Terminology

Establishing a common vocabulary

Wildfire is our common denominator - regardless of age, background, place, or culture, we all are impacted by it in the Southwest (and increasingly across the country). We may be directly impacted as a fire burns close to our town or indirectly via smoke, the impacts on our loved ones living elsewhere, or the anxiety caused when we hear about it on the news. To understand one another when we talk about fire, from the names we give it (wildfire, managed fire, prescribed fire) to the way we interact with it (suppression, boxing it in, preparing for fire), we must build a shared vocabulary and boil down the technical jargon to find common ground through plain English.

Adapted from the Fire Adapted Communities Learning Network’s Language to Use with the General Public

Tools for learning

The first video below provides a basic introduction to terms you may hear in fire management, including ignition source, containment, wildfire versus interface fire, size explanation, control, fire escapes, holding, hot spots, evacuation notices, and more. This video was produced in Vancouver, B.C., so it is worth noting that in the U.S. fires are generally measured in acres; 1 hectare is equivalent to approximately 2.5 acres.

The second video provides a quick introduction to terminology you may hear during an explanation of active wildfire (such as a morning fire briefing), including how to describe behavior and parts of the fire. This includes terms like flanks, fingers, pockets, islands, creeping, running, spotting, fire whirl, crowning, and more. Some of these terms will be used during other types of fire such as controlled burning.

The National Wildfire Coordinating Group also provides an online Glossary of Wildland Fire Terminology and the (easier to use) searchable PDF which comprehensively list phrases and acronyms used in federal wildfire management. While this tool is helpful for understanding language used by federal fire practitioners and collaborators, it does not necessarily allow for the two-way construction of shared language with members of the public.

Moving beyond specific words and technical terms for wildland fire, let’s dive into how we talk about fire more broadly.

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Techniques for Fire Communication

Building Support for Sound Wildfire Policies through Communication

Think back to a day that you were put in a bad mood because of something someone said to you - it may not have been what they said, but how they said it or the specific words they used that nagged at you. The way that we share and receive information matters, especially about something as emotionally charged as wildfire (and associated land management and community preparedness practices). This section provides some suggestions from the Wildfire Resilience Roadmap about being mindful of our fire language.

Summary: Across the country, a majority of Americans believe that forest health as worsening, and concern about wildfires has been steadily growing even among those not directly impacted. They overwhelmingly support a framework to reduce severe fire risk through improved forest management and the use of intentional fire – support that cuts across geography, party, gender, age, race and ethnicity, and socioeconomic status. Research shows that people would rather invest now to reduce severe fire risk than later to address the aftermath of fires, including investments in year-round, trained teams to reduce the risk of severe wildfires. At the same time, innate and growing skepticism about government makes it challenging but important to document these policies’ proven track record and to highlight provisions requiring accountability and transparency in carrying out risk reduction strategies.

Communication Recommendations

These recommendations are taken from Appendix B of the Wildfire Resilience Roadmap and are based on 2022 general public opinion research. See the excerpted PDF here.

Image adapted from Patrick Buggy’s explanation of effective communication

• Build on growing concern that fires are more severe and more frequent: messaging does not need to persuade voters that a problem exists – rather, it needs to funnel their existing concern into support for action.

• Do not rely on concern about wildfire smoke to leverage action: while poor air quality tends to be a concern when and where problems with wildfire smoke are occurring, as the winds shift and fires die down, intensity of concern does as well. Instead, focus on fires themselves.

• Do not count on using climate change as a rationale for action: climate change ranks in the middle-tier of a list of factors that the general public believes is contributing to increasingly frequent and severe wildfires. Deep ideological polarization continues to play a substantial role in perceptions of climate change.

• Focus on impacts of climate change, most notably the contribution of droughts to the greater frequency and severity of fires: even without explicitly naming climate change as the cause, clearly describe its visible, tangible and current impacts on forests and pivoting to how to help them.

• Acknowledge the important ecological role of fire: highlighting the benefits of normal, healthy fire cycles can be helpful.

• Stress the need for improved forest management to prepare for fire: there is bipartisan agreement that the current approach to forest management isn’t working and that the overall condition of America’s forests has worsened over the last few years.

• Do not ignore the need for more careful public behavior in and around fire-prone forests: many members of the public believe that a large share of wildland fires is started by humans, whether through a discarded cigarette or a campfire left unattended. Have open communication about fire exclusion versus fire suppression.

Respondents of the research survey voted on who they felt should bear the burden of responsibility for reducing the risk of severe wildfire.

• Focus on the role of partnerships in acting to reduce fire risk: every level of government, timber companies, residents of fire-prone areas, conservation organizations, and insurance companies bear responsibility for reducing the risk of severe wildfire.

• Use the term “controlled burn”: while it may be considered less scientifically accurate, the general public prefers and better understands the term “controlled burn” in comparison to “prescribed fire.”

• Focus on the principle of preparation: we intuitively understand and value saving money and lives by stopping unnecessary fires from happening and ensuring that ones that do occur are manageable and limited in their negative impacts. Contrasting the high financial and emotional cost of in the aftermath of a wildfire with the relatively low cost of intervention before the fact is highly persuasive. “When it comes to reducing wildfire risk, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure.”

• Highlight the creation and support of a year-round workforce: while wildfires are seasonal, land management is not, necessarily. It makes sense to invest more evenly throughout the year, keeping workers stably-employed, fairly-paid, and connected to the land, than to hurriedly try to assemble a competent workforce as fires occur.

• Call out the need to protect and support first responders whose lives are at risk in addressing wildfires: build support for investments in wildfire risk reduction by reminding people that reducing the intensity and severity of wildfires makes a tough job less dangerous and more manageable.

• Do not use language focused generally on equity in distributing funds, but instead explain the context: given careful wording, members of the public consider communities with high risk and few resources as a high priority for funding.

• Do not focus on investing in protection of timber supplies or recreational areas: these are things that could be restored or recovered more easily if need be than water supply, habitat, or human communities.

• Do not rely on the word “resilience” alone: resilience is seen as a quality displayed in recovery after a disaster has struck, rather than one that reflects an ability to avoid its worst harms. Preparation, safety and health are better since they leave open the possibility that a community could avoid the worst impacts of a disaster – rather than conceding that they will occur. Focus on concrete and desirable outcomes, such as “safe and healthy forests” or “fire-prepared communities.”

Lake Katherine, just south of Santa Fe Baldy, in the Pecos Wilderness east of Santa Fe.

• Do not assume that people understand how fire threatens water supplies - rather, convey the reality and seriousness of the risks: once the process by which fires lead to contamination of survey water is briefly explained, people find it compelling.

• Stress provisions for public disclosure, audits, and fiscal accountability in any public spending proposal: in general, we show high degrees of skepticism about “government” writ large. In any discussion of significant federal investment in wildfire risk reduction, that skepticism (and related fears of waste) emerges as the biggest obstacle to winning public support.

• Use state and federal agencies with land management responsibility as messengers: people understand federal land managers as being guided by the mission of protecting the health of forests for current and future generations and wildlife, and largely trust information from these groups as being free of a profit motive or ideological agenda.

• Give wildland firefighters, park rangers, wildlife biologists and Tribal leaders prominent roles as messengers: we trust messengers who we see as neutral experts on fire issues, such as park rangers, wildlife biologists, and tribal leaders. We also value those with firsthand experience, such as people who have lost their homes to wildfires.

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Resources and Opportunities

Webinars

7 December, 2023 at 2:00pm: Supporting Prescribed Fire in New Mexico
Join FACNM as we discuss New Mexico's new certified burn program and ways to responsibly and safely increase implementation of prescribed fire across jurisdictions and land boundaries in the state! This presentation is open to practitioners, leaders, and members of the public. Read more about the new certification program here.

For those interested in getting involved now, the self-paced online training for the New Mexico Certified Burn Manager Program is available, with options for pile burn or broadcast burn certification!

29 November / 14 December, 2023 / 10 January, 2024 at 12:00pm: Developing Community Wildfire Protection Plans in Your Community

Flyer excerpt for the CWPP webinar

Learn what a Community Wildfire Protection Plan (CWPP) is and why your community may need one, what the process involves and what the components are, what resources you need to complete a CWPP, how to use CWPPs to support funding for implementation and more! Join the webinar to hear about how CWPPs are increasingly being used to direct various funding opportunities, including Community Wildfire Defense Grants (CWDG). This program will also be offered en español.

Online Portals

Landing page for the new Fire Networks website.

One site to access fire resources, news and events, and contacts: the Fire Learning Network (FLN), Fire Adapted Communities Learning Network (FAC Net), Indigenous Peoples Burning Network (IPBN), and Prescribed Fire Training Exchanges (TREX and WTREX) have launched a new website! At firenetworks.org you’ll find information about each of the networks and the way they tackle our fire challenges with unique and complementary approaches to a common goal.

In the News

Map of the Rio Grande Water Fund spanning land ownership and jurisdictions

The Rio Grande Water Fund is highlighted as “one example of an emerging adaptation strategy that is working within—and beyond—existing legal and policy frameworks to accomplish more collaborative efforts across jurisdictional lines and administrative barriers” in the Frontiers in Climate article “Adaptive Governance Strategies to Address Wildfire and Watershed Resilience in New Mexico's Upper Rio Grande Watershed.”

Wildfire Wednesdays #123: How Cross-Boundary Partnerships Bolster Fire Adapted Communities - A Success Story

 Hello FAC NM followers,

Starting the process of working within our communities to become fire adapted is often challenging, and it can be even more difficult to sustain. Making headway requires a force of will, a collective push for change, and ideal conditions coalescing! While the barriers to progress can feel daunting, you are far from alone in your work to build communal resilience. This week, we highlight the success of one community’s partnerships and the extensive wildfire mitigation work that these partnerships have enabled.

Today’s Wildfire Wednesday features:

• The story of Horseshoe Springs Association’s (HSA) Jemez Mountains wildfire mitigation work

• Takeaways from HSA’s success

• Updates and opportunities

Best,
Dayl

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Horseshoe Springs Association’s wildfire mitigation work in the Jemez Mountains

Fall scene in the Jemez Mountains captured using a drone camera. Photo by Mario Pratti

Working together for landscape resilience

Picture this: It’s a warm summer day in a lovely, forested neighborhood in the Jemez Mountains of northern New Mexico. Picturesque cabins dot the hillsides and nestle among the trees. The sun is streaming through a canopy of spruce, fir, and pine, the air smells astringent and fresh, and the sounds of equipment and voices are deadened by a hush created by the mature coniferous forest and its soft duff-covered floor. Residents are out in their yards raking pine needles, chipping slash, and pruning and thinning ladder fuels from the forest around their homes. Everyone is pitching in to do the work that can keep their community safe from wildfire. The community recently received wildfire risk mitigation funding from their local Soil and Water Conservation District, a crucial partnership which enables them to complete this work to improve defensible space in the neighborhood. Nearby, on adjacent Forest Service land, contractors are completing a thinning project on hundreds of acres that will further ensure the community’s resilience to fire. All this work lies within the footprint and is one component of a larger cross-jurisdictional project to increase the resilience of forests and watersheds…

If it sounds a bit too idyllic to be true, we invite you to learn about the Horseshoe Springs Association (HSA).

This scene (with some artistic license on the writer’s part) is the story of HSA, a neighborhood of 50 homes and cabins established in the La Cueva area of the Jemez Mountains in the 1950s and 60s. Their community showcases the success enabled by functional partnerships across agencies and organizations.

In the early days of the neighborhood, there were fire and safety rules in place that required cabin owners to rake pine needles within 30 feet of structures or fuel sources such as wood piles and propane tanks—rules which were later incorporated into the Association’s covenants. Community chipper days to process slash have been held by the Association nearly annually for the last 15 years. Moving beyond individual responsibility, the community has actively partnered with the Forest Service for decades. In the early 2000s, forest thinning to reduce tree densities was completed on HSA’s 64 acres of common land through the USDA Forest Land Enhancement Program (FLEP). The Forest Service began thinning 257 acres of National Forest adjacent to the neighborhood in summer of 2023. A recent partnership with the Cuba Soil and Water Conservation District has brought in grant funding to support hazardous fuel reduction by contractors on private land in the community.

Current status and future work

A ponderosa pine forest in the Jemez Mountains, before and after a thinning project. Sue Harrelson/USFS

As of fall 2023, 27 out of 50 cabin owners in HSA have signed up for thinning through the Cuba SWCD grant and about half of those have already had their property thinned.  Another 10-15 cabins were already at or below the target density level, leaving fewer than twenty percent of the cabins with higher-than-recommended tree density.  In addition, HSA has applied to have 20 acres of common land thinned under the grant program, focusing on the areas closest to possible ignition sources. This community-level work dovetails with the mission of the 2-3-2 Cohesive Strategy Partnership, a landscape-scale effort to promote resilient forests and watersheds in northern New Mexico and Southern Colorado. HSA lies within the project boundary of the 2-3-2, allowing for each project to leverage the funding and forest resilience work of the other by creating landscape-scale restoration areas. This overlap will further enhance the Association’s dedicated mitigation work.

Horseshoe Springs Association is well on its way to becoming fully realized as a Fire Adapted Community, but they couldn’t have done it alone. It is through cross-boundary partnerships and landscape-scale work that they continue to protect themselves from wildfires that regularly move through the Jemez Mountains. When thinking about our work in forest resilience, it is important to acknowledge that much of our regional land management wisdom is derived from the selective logging performed by Ancestral Pueblo people who coexisted with frequent fires in the Jemez. The work of HSA also takes root in the residents’ respect for fire and their understanding that “fire is a question of when, not if”, in the words of resident Brent Bonwell.

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Learning from the Success of Others

Close calls as a call to action

This map shows the proximity of the Cerro Pelado Fire to local communities on May 4, 2022. La Cueva, where HSA is located, was 7 miles from the fire. Image sourced from Los Alamos Reporter.

Wildfires have come close to the community - the 2022 Cerro Pelado fire came within seven miles of the neighborhood, and large fires in the past, such as Las Conchas in 2011 and Thompson Ridge in 2013, have loomed threateningly nearby. While fire has played an important ecological role in ponderosa pine forests for millennia and historical tree-ring fire scar evidence shows that the large size of these modern fires is not unusual, the high-severity tree-killing nature of them is (see this story map of fires in the Jemez). That catastrophic quality is precisely what threatens neighborhoods in the wildland urban interface (WUI), like Horseshoe Springs, and compels them to accelerate their community protection efforts.

Learn more about the fire history of the La Cueva area of the Jemez Mountains in this report by Dendrochrologist Dr. Tom Swetnam.
Listen to Tom speak about fire history in the area at 12pm on November 14 in a FACNM webinar on Fire, Forests, and People in the Jemez Mountains, NM.

Key takeaways from HSA’s work

Communication across boundaries is essential. Without a strong relationship with the Forest Service, Cuba SWCD, and others, much of the thinning work in and around Horseshoe Springs may never have been completed.

Opportunities to fund these projects are important—without the money, how can we do the work? Property owners within the Cuba Soil and Water Conservation District had the opportunity to enter into cost-share agreements and have up to 80% of the cost of their thinning work paid. Local grant programs like these are essential to empowering communities. FAC NM offers microgrants to provide seed funding for community protection efforts like this.

This work takes time. It has taken HSA decades, the dedication of individual landowners, and opportunistic partnerships to reach the point they are at now, with over 80% of properties in the neighborhood thinned to a recommended tree density.

Everyone has a role to play in fire adaptation and ecological restoration. It is through collective action, education, and overlapping projects that we will see large-scale fire adaptation.

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Upcoming Events and Opportunities

Webinars

November 1st, 2023, 10:00 - 11:30am MDT: Smoke: State of the Science
Join for a live virtual session focused on the State of the Science about smoke. This facilitated panel discussion will be guided by your questions. Registration is required. Live session will be recorded and posted on the Rocky Mountain Research Station website here: SYCU - Webinars | US Forest Service Research and Development

December 14th, 2023 9am - 10:30am ET: The Future is Smoky, one of four Fueling Collaboration sessions.
With increasing wildfire activity due to changes in climate, smoke will likely become more prevalent and continue to have an effect on society. Earlier this year, smoke from Canada wildfires lowered air quality in the eastern U.S. to its worst levels in recorded history. As the climate heats up and creates drier conditions, smoky skies will grow increasingly common. Health concerns and prescribed burning actions needed to restore functioning ecosystems will be impacted by already smoky conditions across the country. Panelists include research meteorologists, air quality experts, and fire practitioners. Together, they will explore how we can address and adapt to a smoky future.

Coalitions and Collaboratives Training Opportunity, November 4-5, 2023

Two trainings associated with the 6th National Cohesive Wildland Fire Management Strategy Workshop, taking place November 6-9, 2023, are available through Workshop partner Coalitions and Collaboratives (COCO) and the USDA Forest Service.

When: Saturday and Sunday, November 4-5, 2023, 8am-4pm
Where: Eldorado Hotel, 309 W San Francisco St, Santa Fe, NM 87501
Cost: free to participate even if participants are not attending the Nov. 6-9 Workshop. Pre-registration is required.
How: email event organizers to register for the trainings using the button below.

Training #1: Community Wildfire Mitigation Best Practices Training 2-day short course

Community Wildfire Mitigation Best Practices (CW-MBP) is designed for current or future mitigation specialists, wildfire program leads, and others working with residents and their communities to reduce wildfire risk. CW-MBP training concentrates on science, methods, and tools to help you engage communities and residents while also helping you to eliminate ineffective practices.

Participants should come with a basic understanding of wildfires, how structures ignite, and vegetation management practices. The course assumes you know how to mitigate, but are seeking ways to engage your community. In this workshop, you will work through some of the greatest challenges facing our wildland-urban interface communities with a focus on how to increase engagement with residents and partners. The course will help you break down ineffective practices to make space for the more effective ones with a focus on on-the-ground mitigation activities.

Training #2:  Leading the CWPP Process – Learn how to lead the Community Wildfire Protection Planning process

Over two days, you will learn and practice how to facilitate a CWPP process and leave with templates and access to coaching.

Participants will learn about:

• Mapping the process of CWPP development

• Assessing local risk with everyday tools

• Gathering community input

• Prioritizing treatments with partners

• Creating and implementing an action plan

Participants will receive:

• Ready-to-use CWPP document template

• Individual coaching after the class

• Community assessment, survey, and outreach templates

Wildfire Wednesdays #122: LANDFIRE data and planning

Wildfire Wednesdays #122: LANDFIRE data and planning

Hi Fireshed community,

As wildfire frequency and severity continue to increase, we must be strategic in where and when we complete forest restoration and wildfire risk reduction work. As Forest Service chief Vicki Christiansen put it, '“instead of random acts of restoration, we must share decisions and place treatments where they can produce desired outcomes at a meaningful scale.”

To support strategic planning for wildfire risk reduction, we must use the best available data for the biophysical conditions within our planning areas. One of the most commonly used data sources for planning fire and forest management projects, is LANDFIRE data. Our planning and modelling for fire and forestry projects is limited by the quality of the LANDFIRE dataset. With this in mind, this week’s Wildfire Wednesdays will focus on sharing information about how we can improve the quality and accuracy of the LANDFIRE dataset by providing input for the 2023 update that is happening now.

This Wildfire Wednesday’s includes:

• An overview of LANDFIRE data

• Information about how to provide updates to the LANDFIRE dataset

• Wildfire Risk to Communities - a user-friendly tool for LANDFIRE data

• A webinar about how LANDFIRE data is used for modelling

• General updates and opportunities

Best,
Gabe

LANDFIRE Overview

LANDFIRE data is used to establish wildfire risk for ranking funding proposals, insurance industry evaluations of risk, fire management planning, and more. This dataset is behind much of the work we do and it is important that we understand it.

LANDFIRE (LF), Landscape Fire and Resource Management Planning Tools, is a shared program between the wildland fire management programs of the U.S. Department of Agriculture Forest Service and U.S. Department of the Interior, providing landscape scale geo-spatial products to support cross-boundary planning, management, and operations.

LF data characterize the current and historical states of vegetation, fuels, fire regimes, and disturbances. LF produces a comprehensive, consistent, scientifically credible suite of more than 25 geospatial layers, a reference database, and a set of quantitative vegetation models at a national extent. LF data supports landscape assessments, analysis, and natural resource management. LF supplements and assists modeling of fire behavior and effects.

Update LANDFIRE Dataset

LF has transitioned to annual updates and needs as much time as possible to process data. LF is asking for data to be submitted or available in database systems by October 31st. Please make every effort to have your FY 2023 data accessible to LF by October 31, 2023. Data accessibility may include entering data into online databases/Systems of Record (SOR) so it can be obtained by LF. Data submitted after the deadline will be used if schedules allow. All data contributions must meet LF requirements.

The primary focus of this data call is to collect FY 2023 disturbance and treatment activities. To make annual updates possible LF is asking for data from the fiscal year which runs from 10/01/2022 – 09/30/2023. LF now requires disturbance/treatment date or fiscal year to be included with your data submission,. This will ensure your data are processed correctly. The secondary focus is to collect vegetation/fuel plot data. LF also welcomes feedback on current products.

LF needs your help to collect four types of data:

• Disturbance/Treatment polygons: Disturbance and treatment polygons are first priority data for updates (LF 2012, LF 2014, etc.) and are processed and maintained in the LF Events Geodatabase.

• Vegetation and Fuel Plot data:Vegetation and fuel plot data are the first priority data for mapping (LF c2001 / LF Remap) and are processed and maintained in the LF Reference Database (LFRDB)

• Invasive Species Data: LF is accepting submissions of polygon or plot based invasive species data.

• Lidar Data Lidar data are first priority data for mapping (LF Remap) and will be used to develop vegetation structure models.

• Feedback on LF products: Feedback is secondary priority data for updates and remaps.
  Submit feedback through the LF Help Desk.

For data submission, questions, or you are aware of other data sources, contact:

Brenda Lundberg
LANDFIRE Reference Data Administrator
blundberg@contractor.usgs.gov

Using LANDFIRE Data

Not everyone needs to have GIS abilities to use LANDFIRE data to understand and explore their wildfire risk. To make the dataset more accessible, the USDA Forest Service created the Wildfire Risk to Communities tool.

Wildfire Risk to Communities is built from nationally consistent data, including:

• Vegetation and fire-behavior fuel models from the interagency LANDFIRE program

• Topographic data from the United States Geological Survey

• Historical weather patterns from the National Weather Service

• Long-term simulations of large wildfire behavior from the USDA Forest Service

• Community data from U.S. Census Bureau and Department of Energy

Upcoming Events and Opportunities

Webinars

SWFSC: Overview and Verification of LANDFIRE Fuels: 2022 Cooks Peak Fire

Nov 8, 2023 12:00 PM  MT

A practitioner-oriented overview of LANDFIRE with a focus on fuels and how they react to modeling techniques. The subject area of discussion will be the 2022 Cooks Peak fire located in northern New Mexico. This webinar will be technical in its application and may offer insights for both beginner and advanced LANDFIRE users.

Presenters: Tobin Smail, LANDFIRE Next Gen Fuels Lead, USFS Rocky Mountain Research Station Fire Modeling Institute; and Charley Martin, LANDFIRE Fuels, TSSC Contract USGS/KBR

FACNM - Fire, Forests, and People in the Jemez Mountains, NM: The Long View from Tree Rings and Archaeology

Nov 14th, 12:00 PM MT

In this webinar from the Fire Adapted New Mexico learning network, presenter Dr. Thomas Swetnam discusses the long view on fire, forests, and people in the Southwest through the lens of tree rings (dendrochronology) and archaeology. Although the past is not a perfect guide for the future, the history of people, forests and fires in the Jemez Mountains provides useful insights for restoring and living within resilient forest landscapes today.

View the webinar by registering through Zoom or by joining through Facebook Live on November 14 at 12:00pm.

Job Opportunities

State Forestry Division is hiring two full-time year-round Wildland Fire Hotshot Crews

Applications for hotshot crew superintendent are being accepted now.

The Forest Stewards Guild is hiring a Watershed Restoration Manager in the SW

Applications for the manager are being accepted now.

Wildfire Wednesdays #121: Understanding Past, Present, and Future Fire Patterns Through Tree-Ring Fire-Scar Analysis

Hello, Fireshed readers!

My name is Dayl Velasco. I’m a project coordinator at the Forest Stewards Guild and the newest contributor to the Fireshed blog. Much of my work revolves around fire, from assisting with prescribed burns to collecting data on forest health pre- and post-thinning and burning to measure landscape resilience, and I’m excited to continue working in this realm as I help to coordinate this publication. Nice to meet you!

Today’s Wildfire Wednesday focuses on how scientists use the life history of fire scarred trees that is recorded in their rings (seen in a crosscut of wood) to understand historic fire regimes and date specific fire events. You’ll be introduced to the North American Tree-Ring Fire-Scar Network, which was compiled in 2022 and contains over 37,000 sampled trees across North America. You’ll learn about work closer to home with a brief overview of New Mexico’s own Jemez Mountains Tree-Ring Lab and the research they do and the story of a recently analyzed old ponderosa pine that fell near Jemez Springs and offered its tales up to science, to be absorbed into the tree-ring network. Throughout, we’ll keep in mind how this research guides our work to build resilience in our forests and communities.

This Wildfire Wednesday features information on:

• Understanding past, present, and future fire patterns through tree-ring fire-scar analysis

• Close to home: the largest mountain-range fire scar network in North America

• Applying the science to FACNM

• Resources and Upcoming Opportunities

-Dayl

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Understanding past, present, and future fire patterns through tree-ring fire-scar analysis

Back to basics: what is tree ring analysis?

Ellis Margolis cross dates an old piece of ponderosa pine from the Tesuque watershed outside of Santa Fe, New Mexico. Collin Haffey, USGS Public domain.

In a world where wildfires are increasing in severity year-after-year, driven by climatic changes and increased fuel loads as a result of over 100 years of fire suppression, we know that fire is a force we must learn to live with. This is especially true in the southwest’s fire-adapted forests. As we move toward adaptation ourselves, it is helpful to ground our current understanding of wildfire in the context of centuries-old fire regimes. So, how do we build this historical context?

This is where the trees and the scientists who study them come in. First, some basics: if you’ve ever seen a cut tree stump, you’ve probably noticed that the top of a stump has a series of concentric rings. These rings can tell us how old the tree is, and what the weather was like during each year of the tree’s life. The light-colored rings represent wood that grew in the spring and early summer, while the dark rings represent wood that grew in the late summer and fall. One light ring plus one dark ring equals one year of the tree’s life (NASA, 2017). Dendrochronology is the study of these tree rings to answer questions about the natural world and the place of humans in its functioning.

Trees contain immense histories in their rings and dendrochronologists understand how to read and interpret these records. The information preserved in tree-ring growth records, from fires to weather conditions, reads like a history of the land where they grew for their entire life span - that can be over 1,000 years for some trees! Historical environmental conditions are expressed as wide or narrow rings or changes in growth patterns. Wide rings indicate years of plentiful moisture while narrow rings indicate drought. Ring width can also be correlated with temperature, especially in cooler climates and higher elevations. Learn more about tree rings from the Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research.

Fire scar position and seasonality within the tree-ring and corresponding calendar year.

When a fire moves through a forest, some trees may burn and experience damage to their cambium - or living tissue just below the bark - but not die. This results in a fire scar, where a tree produces sap to cover its scorch wound. As the tree heals and grows around the scorch wound, these scars remain visible within the growth ring of the year in which the fire occurred. It’s important to note that if a tree has recorded multiple fire events, the fires it experienced were likely low- to moderate-severity, or just intense enough to create a scar but not enough to kill the tree. High-severity fires are traceable through tree rings as well, but scientists depend on a record from trees that were able to survive on the less intense outer edges of these fires since trees in the middle are often casualties of the blaze. A robust dataset of tree-ring fire scars, taken from a broad area, can tell us the exact year and season a fire burned, its severity and size, and overall fire frequency from centuries before modern records began.

This field fire history reconstruction through tree-ring fire scars is called Dendropyrochronology (for all you logophiles out there). Read a more in-depth description of fire history reconstruction here.

The North American Tree-Ring Fire-Scar Network

Yellow dots represent the more than 2,500 fire-scar sites that currently make up the network across North America. Credit: Ellis Margolis, USGS.

The North American Tree-Ring Fire-Scar Network was formed in 2022 and compiles tree-ring data from more than 2,500 sites across the entire North American continent. Through the network arise new opportunities to understand the influences of climate, humans, and land use on past, current, and future fire regimes.

The team that undertook the monumental task of analyzing data from more than 37,000 fire-scarred trees across North America found evidence of historical low-severity fire in all but two ecoregions of the continent. This evidence was often found in areas that have not burned for one hundred years or more due to anthropogenic fire suppression.

The network also shows that human influence strongly impacts fire regimes. This is clearly demonstrated at the border of the United States and Mexico, where fires stopped being recorded in the tree ring record on the U.S. side around 1900 as suppression became the norm (creating the fire deficit that helped set the stage for modern megafires), but on the other side in northern Mexico fires continued to burn, be recorded in tree rings, and maintain resilient ecosystems to the present day.

Read more about the North American Tree-Ring Fire-Scar Network in this article.

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Dendropyrochronology Close to Home

The largest mountain-range fire scar network in North America: fire regime reconstruction in the Jemez Mountains

The tree-ring fire scar network in the Jemez Mountains covering >300,000 acres.  Colored symbols represent individual fire-scarred trees from different collections over 30 years. Public domain.

Let’s zoom back in on the Southwest. There is a long history of tree-ring research here, with plentiful old trees, aged tree stumps, and remnant wood present in archaeological structures. Over the past 30 years, New Mexico researchers have built the largest tree-ring fire scar network for a single mountain range - the Jemez Mountains - in North America. The Jemez network currently includes 1,343 trees and 9,014 fire scars with these numbers ever-increasing. The Jemez Mountains Tree-Ring Lab has many concurrent research projects across the Southwest in service of the overarching goal of researching the effects of climate variability on forest ecology, fire ecology, and ecohydrology. Locally, in the Jemez mountains, the lab is working to understand the area burned since 1600 CE over a 300,000-acre landscape. These fire reconstructions allow scientists to place the large fires of recent years into a historical context.

Tree Ring Analysis from Horseshoe Springs

Brent Bonwell cutting the cross section.

Shortly after the completion of a forest thinning treatment near Jemez Springs, Horseshoe Springs community member Brent Bonwell noticed that a large dead ponderosa pine had fallen, and upon closer observation he saw a well-defined fire scar at its base.  He wondered if it would be possible to learn about the fire history of the area by cutting a cross section from the tree and having the tree rings dated to determine exact years of fire events. The tree had seen more than the typical number of fire events in its lifetime, with 17 total scars recorded. 13 of the 17 fire events coincide with some of the largest fires recorded among other fire scar sampling sites in the Jemez Mountains. The tree showed no fires recorded after 1900, reflecting the systematic fire suppression that began at the turn of the 20th century. Read the full report written by Thomas Swetnam of the Jemez Mountains Tree-Ring Lab.

Applying the science

How fire history guides our work with Fire Adapted Communities

Ponderosa pine forest after thinning and burning.

The research being done at tree-ring labs across the world focuses on the interactions between humans, ecosystems, fire, and climate. Many studies are designed to inform forest and fire management decisions by enabling the comparison of our present fire regimes to centuries-long records and historic regimes. In populated areas where communities and their water supplies are potentially threatened by high-severity fires, science-management partnerships use tree ring research to guide land management decisions and goals, with a prime local example being the landscape-scale work of the Greater Santa Fe Fireshed Coalition. Historical reference points provided by tree ring collections and data give managers examples of more resilient forest conditions and fire regimes. Managers can in turn work toward these ideal conditions when acting to restore forests and fire regimes and mitigate wildfire risk in our wildland-urban interface. Every little bit of ecologically-informed forest restoration, whether it's happening on thousands of acres of federal land or in your back yard, is a step in the direction of protecting communities, returning ecosystem functions and biodiversity, and addressing climate change.

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Resources and Upcoming Opportunities

In-person Learning

Applications due October 15th: Fire Leadership For Women (FLFW) 20-Day Session

The National Interagency Prescribed Fire Training Center (NIPFTC) is hosting three training sessions for women in wildland fire management. Participants will experience 10 to 12 days of hands-on burning in complex situations such as wildland urban interface, various fuel types, and will work for several different agencies with unique management objectives. Participants will gain up-to-date knowledge on prescribed fire safety, prescribed fire planning, smoke screening tools, monitoring, and current fire policy.

January session: 01/07/2024 through 01/26/2024

February session: 02/11/2024 through 03/01/2024

March session: 03/10/2024 through 03/29/2024

October 26, 6:00pm, Taos, NM: Future Forests- Living with Fire

Join The Nature Conservancy for a conversation with a panel of experts to talk about the future of forests and how we can manage our forests better in New Mexico. TNC’s Forest and Watershed Health Manager Matt Piccarello will moderate this session that will include an opportunity for audience members to ask questions of the experts.

Webinars

FACNM Fall Webinar Series: Prescribed Fire in New Mexico

FACNM is hosting speakers from across the state (and the country) this autumn to talk about many different aspects of prescribed fire!

First up, join us on October 11th to hear Dr. Makoto Kelp present research that indicates that prescribed fire implemented in priority areas in the West may lower the likelihood and severity of future wildfire smoke during a joint FACNM-SWFSC webinar. Register Now!

On November 14, Dr. Tom Swetnam will discuss research showing that traditional Indigenous fire management may have interrupted the connection between climatic conditions and wildfire behavior at a local level.
To close the series, on December 7, Sam Berry and Brian Filip will discuss implementation of prescribed fire in the state of New Mexico, including the new Prescribed Burner Certification Program and All Hands All Lands. Download the flyer to learn more.

Keep an eye on the FACNM Events page for November and December webinar registration announcements!

Additional Reading and Resources

3 Things Outdoor Recreationists Need to Know About Wildfire — Outdoor Alliance article on how recreationists can support a more fire resilient future through education and support for policy reform.

WildfireSAFE provides simplified access to an advanced suite of fire weather and products to support fire management decisions. Visit the website to view weather & potential for wildfires across the nation.