Fire History in Ponderosa Pine Grasslands: Lessons from the Past

Recent uncontrollable fires sweeping through communities like Julian, CA and Kelowna, BC have punctuated public debates over the management of the dry forest ecosystems of western North America. After a century of increasingly effective and aggressive fire suppression, awareness is building that frequent, small fires may well have played a key role in reducing the likelihood of major, devastating wildfires.

How frequent were fires in the past? Before the advent of modern fire suppression, did more frequent and less intensive fires effectively eliminate the potential for major conflagrations? Were aboriginal inhabitants passive observers of natural fire activity beyond their control, or did they actively use fire for landscape management? The presentation will address such questions using results from a study of fire history in the Okanagan Valley of southern British Columbia. Information stored both in human records and in natural archives laid down in lake sediments and fire-scarred trees were used to document major changes in fire history associated with the demise of aboriginal control and the advent of 20^th century fire suppression.