Ready to blast off?

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Ready to blast off?

• Please get out your outline on succession from
  yesterday and an extra piece of paper.
• Please have your permission slip and 10 on your
  desk.
• Please read the board!

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Brainstorm game 1 min, everything you think of
when you hear

• Wildfire

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Ecology

• The study of relationships between biotic and
  abiotic factors.
• Fire
• Succession
• Intermediate disturbance hypothesis
• Niche
• Habitat

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Some species are fire adapted

• Fire wars 17-30

• Can fire ever be beneficial?

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Fire is critical to prairie and forest ecosystems

• Returns nutrients to soil
• Helps certain seeds germinate
• Forest clears underbrush /fuel
• Prairie kills trees
• Light can reach soil
• Help control pathogens/insects

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US Forest Service fire suppression policy
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Fire Suppression

• 1944 US Forest Service
• 1988 fires in Yellowstone shocked nation
• 1990 fire policy change
• Fire wars 53-103

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Yellowstone 1988 1.4 million acres burned May -
Nov
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US Forest fire policy

• Extinguish arson
• Manage lightning strikes
• Protect people
• Prescribed burns used to reduce wildfire
  intensity and to take advantage of fires
  benefits to prairies/forests

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Intermediate Disturbance hypothesis
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A new regime? Extreme fire

• Yarnell Hill fire AZ (19 hot shots killed
  lightning strike)
• Yosemite National Park (campfire)

• Perfect storm?
• Accumulated fuel
• More people living in remote areas
• Climate change and drought

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Range of tolerance

• Range of chemical or physical conditions that
  must be maintained for populations of a
  particular species to stay alive and grow,
  develop, and function normally.

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Succession The orderly replacement of one
ecosystem by another.

• Primary Succession

• Secondary succession

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Challenge how might these principles apply to
prescribed fires?

• Range of tolerance
• Intermediate disturbance hypothesis
• Succession

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Four Rules of Ecology

• All things are interconnected.
• Everything goes somewhere.
• Theres no such thing as a free lunch.
• Nature always bats last.