Fire History Reconstruction from Lava Beds National Monument Tree Rings

Tree-ring data from Lava Beds National Monument and Bearpaw Butte, California, reconstructs fire events over a 387-year period from 409 to 22 calendar years before present. The National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration's National Centers for Environmental Information compiled this paleoclimatology study, which was last updated in 1928.

Use Cases

• Modeling fire return intervals using the dated fire scar events from tree-ring records.
• Correlating fire history periods with regional paleoclimate proxies to understand climate-fire relationships.
• Calibrating broader regional fire history models using the specific site data from Lava Beds National Monument.

Strengths

• Covers a specific 387-year time period (409 to 22 BP) for fire event analysis.
• Data is curated and archived by the authoritative NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information.

Limitations

• The dataset's last update was in 1928, indicating the analysis methods and metadata are temporally stale.
• Geographic coverage is limited to two specific sites in northern California, limiting generalizability.
• The exact sample size (number of tree samples or fire events) is unknown, preventing assessment of statistical robustness.

Provenance

Source

NOAA National Centers for Environmental Information (NCEI) World Data Service for Paleoclimatology.

Collection Method

Fire history reconstruction from tree-ring analysis (dendrochronology).

Time Range

409 to 22 calendar years before present (BP).

Freshness

null

Geography

Lava Beds National Monument and Bearpaw Butte, California, United States.