Fire Regimes and Forest Reference Conditions for Prescribed Fire Management of Relic Mixed Conifer Forests in Guadalupe Mountains National Park, Texas. Final Report to the Joint Fire Science Program

摘要

The objectives of this project were to: (1) Quantify pre fire exclusion and contemporary forest structure (i.e. species composition, basal area, density, size structure, age structure) in mixed conifer forests in GMNP; (2) Quantify fire regimes (frequency, return interval, size, severity, season) for the pre- EuroAmerican (pre 1850), settlement (1850-1904), and fire exclusion periods (1922- present) in mixed conifer forests in GMNP at both stand and landscape scales; (3) Quantify spatial and temporal variation in fire regimes and forest structure with respect to topography and forest composition. An additional objective was approved as a no-cost extension. This objective was to determine if large diameter fuels (dead standing and downed trees) in the contemporary forest were input to the system during an extended period of drought.