question about historic fire regimes in the Central Interior and Appalachian Swamp Systems Biophysical Setting

[Randy Swaty]

Hello everyone,

I hope this finds you doing well!  I am writing to see if you can guide me on fire regimes in the Central Interior and Appalachian Swamp Systems Biophysical Setting (see map below, and attached description).  I reached out for review of this BpS (and others as you know) and got some substantial comments.  One comment caught my eye:

 

“Are all [fires] really replacement?”

 

I did some literature searching and did not really come up with much.  I do know that the majority of the trees in this type are not fire adapted (e.g., green ash and American sycamore), but I wanted to ask if you have any guidance on this one.  As you may remember LANDFIRE has the following definition of fires:

Surface = 0-25% top kill

Mixed = 26-75% top kill

Replacement = 76-100% top kill

This is technically for within a 30m x 30m pixel, not for a stand or across the landscape.    I am tempted to add in very rare surface fires to capture the fires that would creep in from the edges, mostly for documentation sake.  My guess is that the rare surface fire in the later succession classes has much less of an impact than they would on early succession classes. 

 

I can imagine this might just be the start of a larger conversation.  Please let me know any/all opinions or ideas of who to contact for clarification.