Abstract
Fires that burn unimpeded behave differently than suppressed or prescribed (management-ignited) fires. Studying this fire behavior increases our understanding of historic fire regimes. Wildland fire use policy allows for managing lightning-caused fires for resource benefit without suppressing them provided specific pre-defined conditions are met. Great Smoky Mountains National Park has managed ten fires under this policy from 1998 to 2006. Data from these fires and data from park fire reports for suppressed lightning-caused fires since 1940 were examined to illustrate patterns for non-anthropogenic fires. Lightning-caused fires occurred most frequently during the growing season and many persisted through numerous precipitation events. Unsuppressed fires had long durations (up to 38 days) and exhibited a wider range of fire behavior than found by previous studies for lightning-caused fires in the region. These unsuppressed fires exhibited the largest perimeter growth in periodic bursts of higher-intensity behavior; yet smoldered and crept through the majority of the active burning window. The total area burned by the ten fires managed under the wildland fire use policy from 1998 to 2006 (787 ha) has surpassed the aggregate within-park acreage of 122 suppressed lightning-caused fires over the previous 56 years (523 ha).
Highlights
The identification of lightning as an important ignition source gained acceptance slowly over the last century in the United States
Because the dataset from the ten fires managed far is too small for meaningful statistical analysis, this paper focuses on the qualitative information collected from case studies that demonstrate patterns in lightning-caused fires in the southern Appalachians
These 10 fires burned a total of 787 ha (1,946 ac), which is 264 ha (652 ac) more than the total within-park area burned for the 122 suppressed lightning fires over the previous 56 yr period (Table 1)
Summary
The identification of lightning as an important ignition source gained acceptance slowly over the last century in the United States. The idea was not widely accepted for forests in the Rocky Mountain. Great Smoky Mountains National Park (GSMNP) studies in the. Cohen et al.: Patterns in Lightning-caused Fires Page. 1980s classified all burned areas~ regardless of ignition source~ as non-''virgin" forests; implicitly denying the role of fire as a regular forest process in park ecosystems (Pyle 1985~ 1986). The 1902 U.S Forest Service report on the southern Appalachians acknowledges only anthropogenic sources of fire with no mention oflightning-caused ignitions (Roosevelt 1902). In a 1942 letter to the Chief of Forestry for the National Park Service~ the first GSMNP Superintendent~ J. Until a few years ago I thought lightning would not start fires" (Eakin 1942). Until a few years ago I thought lightning would not start fires" (Eakin 1942). Baker (2002) attributes the change in perception to several factors~ the growth of forest management practices~ proliferation of trained observers~ and systematic data collection
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