Fire history of Rhyolite Canyon, Chiricahua National Monument
Swetnam TW, Baisan CH, Brown PM, Caprio AC. 1989. Fire history of Rhyolite Canyon, Chiricahua National Monument. Technical Report No. 32. University of Arizona, Cooperative National Park Resources Studies Unit. Tucson, Arizona
This document discusses a historical analysis of fire scars to determine the fire frequency trend in the Rhyolite Canyon of Chiricahua National Monument. Fire scar samples collected from areas along the length of Rhyolite Canyon were dendrochronologically analyzed to reconstruct three centuries of fire history. During the 17th to 19th centuries large surface fires often burned through most or all of the canyon at intervals of 9 to 22 years. Before 1801 mean fire intervals were 14.6 years for fires scarring more than 25% of sampled trees and 6.2 years for fires scarring any sampled tree. Shorter interval fires (2 years minimum interval) were recorded in sub-areas of the canyon during periods in the 1700's in the upper canyon and after 1851 in the lower canyon. There was an unusual gap in fire occurrence in the middle and upper portion of the canyon from 1801 to 1851. After this hiatus fires apparently no longer spread between the upper and lower canyon. The episodic fire regime of the 17th, 18th and 19th centuries ended around the beginning of the 20th century, although a fire in 1924 was recorded in several areas of the canyon.
- Type
- Published Report
- Authors
- Swetnam, Thomas; Baisan, Christopher; Brown, Peter; Caprio, Anthony
- Date of Issue
- 1989-08
- Publisher
- University of Arizona, Cooperative National Park Resources Studies Unit
- Units
- CHIR , WRD
- Keywords
- Clemson, FIRE, Fire History, Fire Management, fire scars, fire severity, WRBIB