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Forest Fire & Climate History on Mt. Graham

Forest Fire & Climate History on Mt. Graham. Thomas W. Swetnam Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research The University of Arizona Tucson, Arizona. Henri Grissino-Mayer. Chris Baisan.

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Forest Fire & Climate History on Mt. Graham

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  1. Forest Fire & Climate History on Mt. Graham Thomas W. Swetnam Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research The University of Arizona Tucson, Arizona

  2. Henri Grissino-Mayer Chris Baisan

  3. H. D. Grissino-Mayer, C. H. Baisan, and T. W. Swetnam. 1995. Fire history in the Pinaleno Mountains of Southeastern Arizona: Effects of human-related disturbances. In L. Debano et al. tech. coords., Biodiversity and Management of the Madrean Archipelago: The Sky Islands of Southwestern United States and Northwestern New Mexico, September 19-23, 1994, Tucson, Arizona, USDA Forest Service General Technical Report RM-GTR-264:399-407. H. D. Grissino-Mayer, C. H. Baisan, and T. W. Swetnam1994. Fire history and age structure analyses in the mixed-conifer and spruce-fir forests of Mount Graham. Final Report, Mount Graham Red Squirrel Study Committee, US Fish and Wildlife Service, Phoenix, Arizona. 73 pp. H. D. Grissino-Mayer and H. C. Fritts. 1995. Dendroclimatlogy and dendroecology in the Penaleño Mountains. In: Storm Over a Mountain Islan: Conservation Biology and the Mt. Graham Affair. Edited by C. A. Istock and R. S. Hoffman. The University of Arizona Press, Tucson.

  4. Peter’s Flat Master Fire Scar Chronology

  5. Camp Point Master Fire Scar Chronology

  6. There were more than 6 million sheep in Arizona & New Mexico in 1900.

  7. 1685

  8. stand opening, or climate event? circa 1850-1870

  9. In contrast to ponderosa pine forests, there is evidence for pre-1900 crown fires in mixed conifer and spruce forests of the Southwest. Large aspen stands in the Mogollon Mountains, NM established after crown fires in the early 1900s, well before forest structure changes caused by fire suppression. Old photographs, such as the one above from Mount Baldy, Sangre de Cristo Mountains, NM, document the occurrence of crown fires in some high elevation forests.

  10. Escudilla Fire 1951, near Alpine, AZ McKnight Fire 1951, near Silver City, NM

  11. Spruce Fir

  12. A Douglas-fir snag on Mt. Graham, with an inner ring date of 1101 AD.

  13. Swetnam, T. W. and J. L. Betancourt. 1998. Mesoscale disturbance and ecological response to decadal climatic variability in the American Southwest. Journal of Climate 11:3128-3147.

  14. Comparison of tree-ring widths and rain gauge records from New Mexico: The past 1,000 years of tree-ring growth in Arizona and New Mexico:

  15. Current long-range model forecasts are calling for a La Nina event this fall and winter. Will the 2003-2004 water year be as dry as the 2001-2002 year?

  16. Main Points • Before ca. 1883 surface fires burned at intervals of about 4 to 8 years in the mixed conifer forests on Mt. Graham • Spruce fir forests on Mt. Graham probably burned only at very long intervals of 300 to 400 years. The last very large crown fire in the spruce fir zone (before the 1994 Clark Peak fire) occurred in 1685. • The elimination of frequent, widespread fires in the mixed conifer has led to increased forest densities and a much greater hazard of crown fires burning from low to high elevations. • Climatic variations (change?) may also lead to increased fire hazard, including through the effects of insect outbreaks and tree mortality.

  17. "Massive wildfire potential. Those telescopes are doomed, in my opinion," said tree-ring scientist Henri Grissino-Mayer. "It'll be an inferno, for sure," said wildfire expert Thomas W. Swetnam, director of the UA Laboratory of Tree-Ring Research. A former UA researcher who now works at the University of Tennessee, Grissino-Mayer studied the wildfire history of Mount Graham and determined from fire scars in tree rings that the spruce-fir forest last burned in 1685. The summit of Mount Graham is overdue for a "catastrophic, stand-replacing, wipe-out-everything-on-the-face-of-the-Earth-type fire,“ he said. It was a mistake to allow telescopes to be built there, and the thousands of dead, insect-ravaged trees will compound the fire threat, he said. "As far as I'm concerned, those telescopes are just gonna become melted gobs of goo," Grissino-Mayer said. Jim Erickson, AZ Daily Star, 1 Oct. 2000

  18. Crossdating: The Basic Principle of Dendrochronology C B A A 1920 1930 B 1900 1910 C 1850 1860 1870 1880 1890

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