Download (PDF 628 KB): https://research.fs.usda.gov/download/treesearch/62327.pdf
Abstract
Fire is a natural environmental parameter on which the diversity of life depends. In the United States we are now engaged in sorting all remaining lands not already transformed from nature into two distinct categories of conservation. First are the lands we are committed to protect: National forests, national parks, wildlife refuges, wilderness, and other public lands, and private preserves. Second are the working landscapes found in ranches, small farms, and their woodlands, and some commercial timberlands. From the perspective of the planet, the most significant corollary of climate change is this final conversion of “natural” lands, driven by the population explosion, and portending mass species extinctions in the next three decades. Restoring fire integrity to our public and private natural lands can be reduced to a choice between embracing fire or surrendering to the forces of extinction. Emerging evidence indicates that restoring fire— the creator of habitats and sustainer of the web of life for most terrestrial species, from microbes and arthropods to birds, plants, and animals, and the broad conditioning agent of soils, fuels, and habitats - is our only countermeasure to extinction of perhaps half or all terrestrial birds, plants, and animals. When the pendulum swings our way again, the concept of fire integrity will drive funding for natural lands and the future of fire ecology. Until that time our central mission as fire practitioners, fire ecologists, and managers of natural lands consists of novel holding actions that will perpetuate the web of life.
Parent Publication
Citation
Frost, Cecil. 2020. Restoring the fire continuum: Restoring fire integrity. In: Hood, Sharon M.; Drury, Stacy; Steelman, Toddi; Steffens, Ron, [eds.]. Proceedings of the Fire Continuum-Preparing for the future of wildland fire; 2018 May 21-24; Missoula, MT. Proceedings RMRS-P-78. Fort Collins, CO: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station. p. 84-94.
