Fire cycle of the Canada’s boreal region and its potential response to global change

Abstract

Interactions of fire cycle and plant species’ reproductive characteristics could determine vegetation distribution pattern of a landscape. In Canada’s boreal region, fire cycles before the Little Ice Age (c. 1850s) ranged from 30–130 years and 25–234 years afterwards until the settlement period (c. 1930s) when longer fire cycles occurred in response to climatic change and human interference. Analysis indicated that fire cycles were correlated with growing season (April–October) temperature and precipitation departure from the 1961–1990 normal, varying by regions. Assuming that wildfires will respond to future warming similar to the manner during the past century, an assessment using climatic change scenarios CGCM1, CGCM2 and HadCM2 indicates fire cycles would divert to a range of 80–140 years in the west taiga shield, more than 700 years for the east boreal shield and east taiga shield, and 300–400 years for the boreal plains in 2050.

Keywords

Boreal forest / Fire cycle / Global change / Spatial variability

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