Aboriginal Fire

No human society has lacked fire

Read quote from, Touched by Fire, Stephen J. Pyne (2001)

Key Question: Were western landscapes prior to Euro-American settlement wilderness or modified landscapes by pre-Euro-American peoples?

"Charcoal is the spore of early hominids. The record of their wanderings is preserved and dated by fire." Stephen J. Pyne (2001)

Reasons for Aboriginal Burning

Burning for communication

Burning for travel

Burning to protect forests from crown fires and to stimulate vegetation growth

Burning to attract game to new vegetation and drive game

Burning for warfare and hostility towards Euro-Americans

Burning for agriculture and to stimulate desired plants

Determining how fires started historically is critical because "fires set by hunter-gathers differ from

(lightning) fires in terms of seasonality, frequency, intensity,

and ignition patterns" (Lewis 1985).

Aboriginal Fires Lightning Fires

Opposing Viewpoints

Aboriginal Burning Played Major Role in Maintaining Historical Landscapes

-Human manipulation of vegetation with fire was present for many millennia before the arrival of Europeans

-Humans could start fires at odd times, change biomass, and modify local weather

Oregon's Willamette Valley

-Kalapuya Indians burned grasslands every year in fall

-Burned for hunting white-tailed deer, harvest tarweed seeds, kill grasshoppers (food), clear brush beneath oak trees, (ease acorn collection), and favor growth of camas, lupine and other wild roots

"…the Americas as first seen by Europeans were not as they had been crafted by God, but as they had been created by native peoples" (Kay 1995)

"Despite European images of an untouched Eden, this nature was cultural not virgin, anthropogenic not primeval, and nowhere is this more evident than in the Indian uses of fire" (Krech III, 2000)

Evidence for Native Burning

1. Accounts by early Euro-Americans

2. Oral histories by Native Americans

3. Ecological Fire History Data

4. Pollen/Charcoal Data

Reasons to question reliability of early Euro-American observations of native burning1. Biased Observers

2. Ignitions not Observed

3. Ignorance of Lightning Burning

Fires set by natives were most common in spring and fall

Fires most common in lower-elevation valleys and hunting and travel zones.

Example of people and fire arriving together

(top) Queensland, Australia

(bottom) Lake La Yeguada in Panama

From, Fire, Stephen J. Pyne (2001)

During 1960-1975, 80% of fires on N.F. in AZ and NM were ignited by

lightning (avg. 1,873 fires/year)=highest rate of

lightning fire ignitions in the US (Barrows 1978)

Example of humans substantially modifying their

environment

-0.5 ha/person/yr for staple foods

-wood for clearing ag. Land, firewood, heating, building materials

"The Turkey Springs area has been the site of human settlements, at least periodically, for several hundreds or even thousands of years..may reflect preponderance of human ignitions"

(Romme, 1994)

Ignitions are not limiting factor in the Southwest

Climate and Fuels are the primary drivers for fires in the Southwest