Study: A 1,500-year synthesis of wildfire activity stratified by elevation from the U.S. Rocky Mountains

While Trump’s Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke lays the blame for wildfires squarely on “frivolous lawsuits” filed by “environmental terrorist groups” scientists are busily producing more research about wildfires, like this latest study.

Apparently, “environmental terrorist groups” were very active around the year 600 AD and again around 1050 AD.

A PDF of the study is available here.

Abstract

A key task in fire-climate research in the western United States is to characterize potential future fire-climate linkages across different elevational gradients. Using thirty-seven sedimentary charcoal records, here we present a 1500-year synthesis of wildfire activity across different elevational gradients to characterize fire-climate linkages. From our results, we have identified three periods of elevated fire occurrence centered on the 20th century, 900 cal yr BP, and 1350 cal yr BP. During the 20th century, fire activity has occurred primarily in the northern Rocky Mountains, with mid-elevations experiencing the greatest increase in wildfire activity. While wildfires occurred primarily in the SRM region ∼900 cal yr BP, the greatest increase in high-elevations occurred in the NRM at this time. Finally, synchronous wildfires occurred in both northern and southern Rocky Mountain mid-elevations ∼1350 cal yr BP, suggesting a potential analog for future wildfire conditions in response to warmer temperatures and more protracted droughts. We conclude that wildfire activity increased in most elevations during periods of protracted summer drought, warmer-than-average temperatures, and based on modern climate analogs, reduced atmospheric humidity.

16 thoughts on “Study: A 1,500-year synthesis of wildfire activity stratified by elevation from the U.S. Rocky Mountains”

  1. Just because wildfires were correlated with drought in the past does not necessarily mean we are doomed to large wildfires today. We have the opportunity to attempt to control fire behavior. Our current fire policy is irrational, in the sense that we spend huge amounts of time and money analyzing NEPA and ESA for thinning projects and then defending those decisions in court, whereas as soon as the fires start we drop everything and just try to mitigate the damage. It would be much more efficient if we could work together to address the problem in the first place, and historical correlations like this paper don’t change that. It frustrates me when I hear that ‘large fires are natural’, because that isn’t relevant, and it’s not helpful.

    Reply
  2. Matthew, you’ve mentioned Zinke’s comment at least three different posts..every political figure says dumb things. I think that these are worthy of comment, but prefacing each post with (part of) what Zinke said seems unnecessary.

    Reply
    • Sharon, You have mentioned a certain Kieran Suckling comment way more than three times on this blog in the past. Suckling runs an environmental and wildlife protection organization.

      Meanwhile, Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke runs the Dept of Interior, which manages 500 million acres of federal public lands in the United States.

      If you don’t think it’s a big deal that public employee Ryan Zinke claimed that wildfires are caused by “environmental terrorist groups” so be it.

      Reply
  3. “It frustrates me when I hear that ‘large fires are natural’, because that isn’t relevant, and it’s not helpful.”

    “Natural” is absolutely relevant because that is the starting point for meeting NFMA’s diversity requirements. Ecological integrity requires that ecosystem functions “occur within the natural range of variation and can withstand and recover from most perturbations imposed by natural environmental environmental dynamics or human influence.” Where large fires are what the climate and vegetation should produce, managing to prevent them should be minimized. From that starting point, the planning process would start looking at the values at risk that may warrant exceptions for parts of the ecosystem while meeting the overall requirement.

    Reply
    • Jon, not to be unnessarily historic here, but the concept of ecological integrity as defined in the current NFMA regulation and directives, as you have described here, is to my mind, way beyond what NFMA says (my italics):

      (B) provide for diversity of plant and animal communities based on the suitability and capability of the specific land area in order to meet overall multiple-use objectives, and within the multiple-use objectives of a land management plan adopted pursuant to this section, provide, where appropriate, to the degree practicable, for steps to be taken to preserve the diversity of tree species similar to that existing in the region controlled by the plan;

      That’s the way it works, that administrations get to write regulations that may or may not match the intent of Congress. It seems like in our world, though, it (NFMA) doesn’t matter enough for Congress to spend the political capital. Which leaves it up to the courts, which are run by who has the energy and resources to litigate. Based on my knowledge of the history of NFMA, and its plain English text, though, I can’t get there to basically doing away with MUSYA and substituting NRV.

      Reply
      • Plain English: NRV represents “sustained yield” – of everything (which was the fine-tuning of MUSYA intended by NFMA).

        Reply
  4. Sharon: “Matthew, you’ve mentioned Zinke’s comment at least three different posts..every political figure says dumb things. I think that these are worthy of comment, but prefacing each post with (part of) what Zinke said seems unnecessary.”
    ===

    I don’t understand, none of those posts subject matter were ever about nature, forests, ecology, etc. It’s obvious the posts were indeed all about your country’s Mr Zinke. At least I understood that.

    Reply
  5. Jon,
    Unless we’re talking about wilderness areas (…and I don’t think we are – there doesn’t seem to be too much debate about that…), there are definitely “values at risk” from any large/high intensity fire. I can’t think of any forest in the contiguous US where a 100,000 acre fire wouldn’t put a huge number of values at risk, to say nothing about the ‘value’ of the timber itself.

    Given that both large/high intensity fires and smaller/lower intensity fires are part of the historical record, it makes sense for fire managers to prefer smaller and lower intensity fires. Small fires fit under the NFMA diversity requirements too. I think somehow the factually true statement that large wildfires “are natural” is somehow taken as evidence that they are OK today. They’re not OK, and I don’t think that implication is valid.

    Reply
    • To summarize the planning question … where on the landscape does some other interest outweigh the the legal imperative for fire to occur within its natural range of variation, when that range favors large, high intensity fires? This question isn’t limited to wilderness.

      Reply
  6. Just for the record…. I agree with Sharon. Zinke’s statement may be dumb, but Matt’s post isn’t really a response to Zinke, so using that quote is a non sequitur.

    Reply
    • Just for the record…I don’t care about your opinion of how I wrote a quick blog post. Cheers!

      P.S. When the Secretary of Interior blames wildfires on American citizens that he calls “environmental terrorists”…and then a couple days later a study comes out illustrating the fact that massive wildfires burned in the modern day USA during 600 AD and against around 1050 AD (long before the supposed “environmental terrorists” started causing wildfires) that’s hardly a ‘non sequitur’ buddy.

      Reply

Leave a Reply to Matthew Koehler Cancel reply