STUDENT INSTRUCTIONS

In this exercise you will use the data from one of two studies to support your role as a concerned citizen speaking out at a public meeting. (You can invent your own role or you have been assigned a role). In public sessions about controversial topics affecting communities, citizens are often given an opportunity to speak their opinion and concerns. You (or your group) will have a maximum of 2 minutes to state your case. You can read your statement or speak it freely. In either case you must use the data in one of the figures during the statement.

The focus of this controversy is fire. Obviously fire is a real concern for us all. Anyone who has seen a house burn down or a forest in flames appreciates the power and destructive force of fire.

Fire management has been a point of dispute in the U.S. for a long time. In the days of the early settlers and ranchers in the west, people who grazed cattle and sheep set fire to stimulate growth of forage. This angered others whose homes and businesses were threatened by escaped fires. Early conservationists also wanted the land left undisturbed.

Today headlines about huge forest fires are unfortunately commonplace. What is your citizen's reaction to these headlines http://www.nbc4.tv/news/2582283/detail.html and http://www.spaceimaging.com/newsroom/2003_calif_fires.htm about the fires in California in 2003? There is a good deal of argument about the fire suppression policies of the past. How would your citizen view the Forest Service's past policy of fire suppression?

As you can imagine debates about controlled burns and letting natural fires burn are as hot as the fires themselves.

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Bormann and Likens Data

These are fire statistics in northern hardwood forests in the Great Lakes region and the northeast. See the figure legend for more details.

Pollen studies in sediment cores from the Great Lakes have indicated that catastrophic fires have been frequent in some northern hardwood forests. One study from the Boundary Waters Canoe Area in Minnesota show a natural fire rotation of about 100 years in the presettlement period.

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Minnich Study

Minnich studied fires in the Mediterranean-type habitat of southern CA and northern Mexico. Although vegetation type is similar in both areas, fire histories have been quite different since the early 20th century. Before this time lightening-set fires were common on both sides of the border. Sheep and cattle farmers also set fire to improve grazing, and both natural and set fires could burn for months. However in 1892 the Los Angeles coastal plain region became the nation's first federal forest reserve, and fire suppression was initiated north of the U.S/Mexico border.

Minnich tested the hypothesis that fire suppression has resulted in recent severe and large-scale wildfires in southern CA by comparing burns in southern CA with those in northern Mexico. He especially focused on size of burned areas. See the figure legends for more information.