The fire of 1947 on MDI

Shaffer, Andy; Wener, Chris; Kauffman, John; Gardner, Tyler; Curnan, Marty

Following sections taken from portions of the report: 'Our group established a transect to study how this fire affected a landscape within Acadia National Park. Along this transect, we inventoried trees growing along this transect and extracted core samples of several trees to establish their ages.' 'The objective of our transect study was to determine the boundaries among different vegetation types that resulted from the fire. Using an aerial photo, we planned a transect that would place our cruise within both burned and unburned areas so we could compare the vegetation types.' 'We began by looking at an aerial photo of the area we intended to study. The area of interest was to the east of Eagle Lake near Otter Cliffs. In the aerial photo, the burned zones could be distinguished from the unburned zones by observing the changes in vegetation types. We established a transect that included sections of both burned and unburned forest. Before setting foot in the field, we created a map using GIS technology that we would use to complete our cruise. From that map we determined the coordinates of the beginning and ending of the transect. These coordinates were loaded into a GPS receiver so they could be found in the field. Using the Cogoline tool in MapInfo, an azimuth was determined to be 175 degrees between the two points, with a distance of 2300 meters. ' 'We also used the GIS map to determine changes in the vegetation types in the area in which we were working and separated the transect into five sections. The first section showed evidence of burning due to the presence of early successional species such as aspen and paper birch along with young spruce trees. The second section also showed evidence of fire because much of the same species growing in section one were present. However, in section two the birches were larger in diameter and red maples were present. Section three began an unburned pocket of forest with large diameter red spruce, an occasional balsam fir, and some saplings. In the fourth section, there were smaller diameter trees present along with some older trees. The fifth segment of the transect was an unburned area with large diameter trees and an open understory.' ' Using a GPS receiver, we arrived at the point previously determined to be the beginning of our transect. Our cruise was divided into 100 feet sections. Using a compass, one person would pull the tape along the previously designated azimuth. Following the person pulling tape was another person with a BAF 75 prism determining which trees needed to be measured and recorded for our transect. Another person would measure all the included trees as well as any downed woody material with a diameter larger than six inches that crossed our transect. This procedure was repeated for all the one hundred foot increments along the entire transect.' 'In addition to taking an inventory of the forest, age measurements of certain trees were also obtained by using an increment boring technique. Once a tree was selected for boring, the diameter at breast height, total height, and live crown ratio were measured. The increment borer was used to obtain a core sample from which the age of the tree could be determined. Core samples were taken from trees of different species along the transect.' Appendices and field notes are included. Also a CD with raw data (see Contractor et al. 2005 for copy of CD), spreadsheet files of data, and covers are included with report. /STUDY LOCATIONS:/ /MOUNT DESERT ISLAND/Otter Cliffs