I’m interested in getting a PhD in fire ecology. Are there any potential researchers/mentors in this field whose work you’d recommend checking out? Thank you!

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We're trying to answer some lingering questions! Have you talked to your doctor about trying Varenicline (Chantix, see our comment here for a description: https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/10jkffc/comment/j5l61a5/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3) or using multiple NRT methods like the patch for general all-day nicotine abstinence relief and possibly nicotine gum during times where you need more immediate craving relief? The biggest predictor of long-term quitting is the number of quit attempts. Quitting takes practice, and many individuals have to try multiple times before being successful. The most important thing is to keep trying. Every attempt matters! Another possiblity is working with a psychologist specializing in substance use or someone certified in tobacco cessation. As we noted in another comment (https://www.reddit.com/r/IAmA/comments/10jkffc/comment/j5l7zvf/?utm_source=share&utm_medium=web2x&context=3), there are many things that can make quitting more difficult in your everyday life and a lot of work has been done developing strategies that can help.

I am a graduate student at NCSU pursuing a Master of Forestry. I am wondering if there is a systematic way of assessing fire severity following a wildfire event? For a project last semester I used FIA data to compare pre- and post-fire conditions, but this is only possible in areas that have already been sampled.

Great question! As with many questions in ecology, it depends. The impact of fires on ecosystem soils tend to depend on the amount of soil heating that occurs, the amount and duration of vegetative cover lost, and the post-fire events that follow. Soils tend to be remarkably good insulators, and in many cases, elevated temperatures due to fire may only go a few inches underground. Because of that, low intensity fires often have minimal impacts on soils. On the other hand, high intensity fires or fires with heavy fuels concentrated on the surface and with long residence times, can have more significant impacts to the soils. In some cases directly volatilizing soil organic matter and soil nitrogen. As we see in more arid places in the western US, post-fire erosion can be a huge issue due to pre-fire heavy fuel loads and post-burn soil exposure due to delayed vegetative response. In the southeastern US, ecosystem vegetation can respond within days of a fire, protecting the soils from erosion. In more arid places, vegetation may not recover for months, leaving the soils exposed to erosion.

WoW! It was really cool!

Thanks :D

Who is your funding source currently and how does your pathway to independence grant process work? I come from a molecular biology background and my K99/R00 was through the NIH

Are there hardwood species in the south that are fire tolerant and live long enough to be useful in dendrochronology?

In my own research, I do not sample live trees for fire history. Because fire scars can occur on any side of a tree, we generally need a full cross section (sometimes called a tree cookie) for the fire-history work. We focus on collecting these cross sections from snags (standing dead trees) and stumps. There is a tree-ring method of sampling live trees without them - a pencil thin core is extracted using a tool known as an increment borer. However, this method is not useful for fire history; it’s used in studies that examine things like tree age and climate-growth relationships. You can check out cool photographs of working with stumps and live trees on my research website:

https://sites.google.com/view/monicarother/photo-gallery

These are super interesting!! Had no idea!

Thanks for the question! Fire in California is very different from fire in the Southeastern U.S. (where I am based). It’s a combination of many factors that makes the wildfire situation so challenging out there. First, the climate (including the winds but also the hot, dry summers) is very conducive to fire. Second, the topography is complex and the mountainous landscapes also create a more challenging situation for controlling fire. And yes, human ignitions are a huge problem in California and across the globe - not just by ‘miscreants’ but also through accidental ignition related to vehicles, power lines, and other issues. Another thought is that we also have a ‘fire deficit’ in many landscapes - fires have been suppressed for decades or longer in many areas which creates a more flammable situation that is more vulnerable to burning at higher intensity. Finally, it’s also important to remember that fires are indeed natural in many Californian landscapes - so just because it’s a wildfire that may create challenges/hazards for people doesn’t mean it is totally unnatural and isn’t providing any ecological benefits.

Cool! Thanks!

Outside of the policy / attitudes towards the effective use of prescribed burning and forest management, what are biggest limitations to prescribing burning happening at scale in the US?

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So far in my research, I have focused on two different pine species. First, in the Southeast, I have worked with longleaf pine (Pinus palustris). This species used to be widely distributed across the North American Coastal Plain, from eastern Texas up to southeastern Virginia. Longleaf pine and its associated ecosystems are fire maintained - they need very frequent fire (about every 1-4 years) to stay healthy! In the West, I have worked with ponderosa pine (Pinus ponderosa). Like longleaf, ponderosa is known to require frequent fire to maintain healthy forest composition and structure. I’m in love with these two fire-adapted pines!

You can take small cores from live trees without harming them. They don't need to be cut down. Here in the Pacific Northwest, I've cored a 400 year old Douglas fir.

That’s a great question! With the understanding that in many places there is a fire deficit on the landscape, there is quite a bit of interest right now in cultural burning across the US / globe. Tree rings and fire scars don’t specifically provide information about how the fires were started, but inferences can be made in some cases. My work into understanding the seasonal aspects of fire scars can help to provide clues about the origins of fires. When we see fire scars that indicate the tree scarring occurred outside of typical wildfire season(s), we can often make assumptions that those fires were anthropogenic in origin. We consider burning by indigenous people to be an important part of the historical fire regime in many locations.

How much regional variation do you see if frequency / intensity of historic fire in different locations (e.g. Southeastern US, Rocky Mountains, California, etc) Would you be able to use this research to tailor prescribed fire recommendations to reduce risk and maximize beneficial effects of future prescribed fire programs?

Which species of tree(s) do you use to conduct your research on fire ecology and tree ring research?
(from the Southern Fire Exchange LinkedIn page)

Great question! I think a recent study that I completed with colleagues in the Red Hills Region of Florida and Georgia was especially fascinating. Most tree-ring based fire history studies show almost no fire activity in the 1900s and later. This is because of the “Smokey Bear Effect” - people stopped allowing fires to burn in the U.S. through direct fire suppression. There were also changes in fuels related to development (e.g., roads that disrupted fire spread) and cattle and sheep grazing that inhibited fire occurrence and spread in much of the U.S. What was interesting about the Red Hills study is that we found TONS of fire activity through the 1900s and up to the present day. The Red Hills have long been known as a region where the burning never stopped, but we provided hard evidence of this claim through the fire scars.

Here’s a link to that publication:

https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0378112720311750

What would you consider the coolest piece of fire history you found out from tree rings?

(from the Southern Fire Exchange LinkedIn page)

That’s exciting that you have initiated a PhD on wildfire! Congrats! This is a tough question because it just depends on where you look! In longleaf pine ecosystems of the Southeast, for example, our tree-ring records show us that we need more fire on the landscape. We need to continue our prescribed burning and increase it in many areas. There are some locations where fire activity has changed in recent years, related to climate change and the history of fire exclusion (including fire suppression). In some places, fires are happening more frequently than historically, based on comparisons to the tree rings and other proxy records.

How do wildfires influence soil quality in forests? What are the vital nutrients lost? What are the techniques you follow to rejuvenate them and approximately, how long does it take for the soils to bounce back on an average, especially after ground fires and surface fires?

Yes, we do have some general rules in terms of the number of trees needed for a fire history study using tree rings. For each site, we tend to want at least 10-15 trees. However, there is some wiggle room there since it depends on whether the trees we sample have picked up on a lot of fire activity or not. Some trees are better than others at documenting the fires that occur around their bases. In some studies, I’ve seen 20-40 trees included per site.

There are many adverse health/climatic effects from prescribed burnings, isn't there any other way to do what fire does to the forests, without actually having to burn them?

I’m not sure about faking tree rings, but there have been studies that have intentionally created fire scars (damaged tree tissue caused by fire). These studies have looked to understand the mechanisms and conditions under which fire scars can be formed and thus under what circumstances trees record the occurrences of fire on the landscape.