OUR FOCUS
Since the 1980s, a primary focus of research at CTRS has been fire history. Using dendrochronological methods to date fire scars (wounds) on trees, we can determine the exact year, and often the season, of past fire events. Our fire history reconstructions typically can span 300 to 600+ years and describe the occurrence of fire at a particular location on the landscape. These records inform fire management of landscapes and, through modeling, fire regime variability across the North American continent.
THE DATA
CTRS has fire history data from over 160 sites in North America, primarily from U.S. states east of the Rocky Mountains and extending into southern Canada. These studies provide characteristics of historical fire regimes at a site (such as fire frequency, severity, size, and seasonality) and also allow us to study the controls on fire occurrences such as topography, climate, and ignition sources. One of the most important results of our fire history research has been the widespread acknowledgement of fire as an historically important ecological disturbance agent in the eastern U.S.– essential information for those tasked with management, conservation, and restoration of fire-dependent natural communities.
