Southern Research Station

Title: Fire in southern forest landscapes

Author: Stanturf, John A.; Wade, Dale D.; Waldrop, Thomas A.; Kennard, Deborah K.; Achtemeier, Gary L.

Date: 2002

Source: In: Wear, D.M and Greis, J. editors. 2002. Southern Forest Resource Assessment. P. 607-630 (Chapter 25) Gen. Tech. Rep. SRS-53. Asheville, NC: U.S. Dept. Agric., Forest Service, Southern Research Station

Description: Other than land clearing for urban development (Wear and others 1998), no disturbance is more common in southern forests than fire. The pervasive role of fire predates human activity in the South (Komarek 1964, 1974), and humans magnified that role. Repeating patterns of fire behavior lead to recognizable fire regimes, with temporal and spatial dimensions. Understanding these fire regimes is essential to examining the importance of fire in southern landscapes and integrating fire into forest management. This chapter has six sections:

1. Fire regimes and fire types
2. Fire history in the South
3. Fire regimes of southern forests
4. Prescribed fire
5. Smoke management
6. Restoring fire into southern ecosystems

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Citation

Stanturf, John A.; Wade, Dale D.; Waldrop, Thomas A.; Kennard, Deborah K.; Achtemeier, Gary L.  2002.  Fire in southern forest landscapes.   In: Wear, D.M and Greis, J. editors. 2002. Southern Forest Resource Assessment. P. 607-630 (Chapter 25) Gen. Tech. Rep. SRS-53. Asheville, NC: U.S. Dept. Agric., Forest Service, Southern Research Station