Doctoral Dissertation Research: Effects of Prescribed Fire on Forest Dynamics and Resource Use

Stanford University, Stanford CA

Investigators

Abstract

This doctoral dissertation research project will analyze how prescribed fire and fire exclusion affect forest dynamics, wildfire risk, and indigenous resource use by the Yurok and Karuk tribes in the Klamath River basin of northwestern California. This project will enhance knowledge about coupled human-ecological relationships, fire ecology, biogeography, and human behavioral ecology. By employing the conceptual framework of alternative stable states, this project will provide new insights about the potential influence of intentionally set fires and Native American resource use on ecological community dynamics. The project will assist the Yurok and Karuk tribes as well as the U.S. Forest Service with their efforts to reinstate prescribed fire as a means to improve access to cultural and subsistence resources and reduce wildfire risk, and it will contribute to assessment of the potential utility of employing prescribed fire in other locales. The project also will provide new perspectives and data regarding the historical characteristics of fire regimes. As a Doctoral Dissertation Research Improvement award, this award also will provide support to enable a promising student to establish a strong independent research career. Small-scale subsistence groups and land managers worldwide intentionally set prescribed fires to improve accessibility to natural resources, enhance resource abundance and distribution, and reduce the spread of wildfire. After decades of fire exclusion in North America, efforts to revive the use of prescribed burning face several obstacles, such as restrictions, administrative processes, and financial constraints. Combined with changing climate and land-use regimes, fire exclusion has altered fire regimes, often leading to increases in wildfire size and intensity. In some parts of the nation, Native American communities are leading prescribed burning efforts because of their cultural connection and reliance on fire-dependent resources. The restoration of prescribed fire by Yurok and Karuk tribal members provides an opportunity to test hypotheses related to the use of prescribed fire and ecological community dynamics. Prescribed fires also help meet multiple tribal objectives, including increasing the availability of hazelnut stems for basketry materials; maintaining savannas for deer and elk forage to improve hunting; and reducing wildfire risk. The doctoral student conducting this project will compare hazelnut stem densities, deer frequencies, and surface fuel loads in burned plots along with matched plots in unburned areas. He will evaluate the effects these fire regimes may have on resource access by observing the harvesting trips of tribal members as they search for fire-dependent resources, and he will conduct interviews focusing on fire histories at harvesting sites. He will establish vegetation plots at these harvesting and prescribed fire locations in order to monitor ecological change at each site, and he will analyze aerial photographs and satellite imagery ranging from 1944 to 2016 to compare historical and contemporary savanna characteristics. Transects will be stratified along remnant savanna borders, recent prescribed burns, and adjacent unburned areas to assess species composition under distinctive fire regimes. To assess effects on wildfire risk, the student will contrast surface fuel loads between prescribed burn and non-burn areas with wildfire models in those ecological communities.