Forest fires in the Muddus National Park (northern Sweden) during the past 600 years

Abstract

The occurrence of forest fires in the Muddus National Park (area, 50 000 ha), just north of the Arctic Circle in northern Sweden, was investigated on 75 separate sample plots. Between 1413 and the present, evidence of 47 fire years was obtained by dating the fire scars on living Scots pines (Pinus sylvestris), the oldest of which had germinated in 1274. The fire traces found on the sample plots were fire scars on living or dead trees or charcoal fragments in the humus layer. Plots lacking all traces of former forest fires were mainly those situated on sites surrounded by extensive mires. Forest fires were shown to have occurred in the five different types of forest investigated. The commonest frequencies of fires in the pine forests occurred with the interval 81–90 years, while the mean frequency was 110 years. The mean interval of time elapsed since the last forest fire occurred in the pine forests was 144 years. Some of the major fire years in the Muddus area coincide with forest fires in other parts of northern Sweden, in the taiga of western Russia, and in central Siberia.