Global Fires: How Have Humans Shaped Ecosystems Through Their Use of Fire?

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Humans have altered ecosystems for their benefit for thousands if not millions of years although the extent to which humans modified their environment is hotly debated. This discourse places our perception of present landscapes along a spectrum that ranges from near-pristine to mostly human-created environments. Our goal is to employ a new suite of paleoecological techniques (high-resolution charcoal, pollen, and geochemical analyses) to better understand how early and more recent human colonizations influenced environments through use of fire and to use this information to identify settings that are particularly vulnerable to future climate and land-use change. https://dcmp.org/series/329-wildfire-pire

Jump down to: Key research questions | Using resources found here for teaching | Related links

Why is better understanding human influence on natural fire regimes important?

Human activities interact with climate to alter fire activity in different ecosystems worldwide. Humans can influence natural fire activity by igniting fires when and where they were naturally rare, modifying fuel composition and structure, synchronizing ignitions to match times of low fuel moisture, and suppressing or eliminating fires. Human activities interact with natural climatic conditions that control the timing and number of ignitions that occur in a given landscape, the type of vegetation and fuel conditions (e.g., available biomass and fuel moisture) and fire weather (e.g., temperature, wind speed, drought). Our research adds to our understanding of human-fire-climate interactions in a number of ways:

• Our research provides new insights into why it is that some forests are resilient to the introduction of a new disturbance and some are not--a question that is relevant to ecosystems worldwide.
• Better understanding the interaction between humans, fire and climate in different settings worldwide will help managers anticipate vulnerabilities and impacts of future climate and land-use change.
• The degree to which ecosystems have been altered by human activities is a key criteria for prioritizing conservation efforts globally, particularly in identifying regions that are largely pristine and deserve high priority for protection.
• Results from our research lays a groundwork for developing restoration and management objectives that are informed by historical ecosystem conditions and dynamics.

Key research questions

Our research centers on a set of key questions:

1. Which settings are most vulnerable to rapid transitions in vegetation (e.g., forest to open lands) resulting from human activities?
2. Where have humans had the greatest impact in altering fire regimes and ecosystems - creating fire-prone or fire-inhibiting landscapes where they did not occur previously?
3. At what scales are human influences most relevant?

Using resources found here for teaching

The links provided here explore the relationship between how past and present human activities, particularly fire, alter important ecosystem dynamics. Information and resources come directly from results of research being conducted worldwide on the causes and consequences of human-set fires in different settings. For an overview of the topic of human influence on fire regimes go to the 'Humans, Fire, and Climate Change link. Here you will find an explanation of how paleoecological approaches are used to learn about the past, an overview of our overarching research questions and motivation for conducting research in temperature ecosystems worldwide. Human-set Fires in New Zealand highlights results from research investigating a dramatic example of how early-humans and Europeans transformed a landscape through the use of fire, and how the New Zealand example helps us understand the future vulnerability of similar settings to climate and land-use change. Go to the Megafires: Rare Events or the New Norm link to explore cases studies that investigate the myths and scientific evidence associated with the phenomenon of 'megafires'. Lastly, use the Teaching Materials link for specific activities and labs that center on the topic of humans and fire. Teaching resources here allow you to teach about human impacts on the environment using both results from research highlighted here and information from your area.

Related links

click to see WildFire PIRE Project - WildFIRE PIRE is an international partnership focused on the causes and consequences of fire in the past, present, and future: a partnership that brings together an array of fire scientists and managers to learn from each other and provide knowledge about fire's role in the Earth System. Our vision is be a leader in interdisciplinary discovery, education, and engagement focused on wildfire in temperate ecosystems, starting in New Zealand, Australia and the western U.S., but with the goal of extending fire science more broadly.

click to see New Zealand Project - New Zealand offers one of the most dramatic examples of human-caused deforestation through the deliberate use of fire, and its vegetation and fire history provides an important case study for understanding the consequences of temperate forest transitions occurring worldwide today.