Fire in the Ozarks: tree-ring research reveals widespread fires in region’s past
Scientists at the University of Missouri have found historical evidence of widespread, recurring wildfires in the Ozarks and elsewhere by studying old tree stumps, some of which date to the 1500s and earlier.
These researchers’ findings are now available online in a multimedia fire history presentation, “Fire in the Ozarks:
Burning by humans has shaped the landscape,” published by the Oak Woodlands & Forests Fire Consortium and hosted by ArcGIS StoryMaps.
Featuring photos, slideshows, maps, and videos, the “Fire in the Ozarks” StoryMap tells how dendrochronologists — researchers who study history revealed by tree rings and the fire scars contained within tree rings — have discovered a remarkable pattern of fire repeated over hundreds of years, continent wide, but particularly in the Ozarks.
This new online publication shows how fire has shaped Ozark ecosystems, because fire influences which plant and animal species are hindered or thrive. Humans have played a big role in applying fire and suppressing fire, and those actions have played out within Ozark ecosystems in the past and today.
The “Fire in the Ozarks” StoryMap focuses on the Current River watershed in south-central Missouri, tracing the role of fire from the time this area was within the realm of the Osage Nation through the impacts brought by European colonizers.
“We hope anyone living in the Ozarks will find this science and history fascinating. I certainly do,” said science writer Denise Henderson Vaughn, author of the “Fire in the Ozarks.” StoryMap readers can follow a step-by-step slideshow as researchers with the Center for Tree-Ring Science at MU collect cross-section samples from old shortleaf pine old stumps and snags (standing dead trees), then analyze their growth rings and fire scars in the laboratory.
Viewers can take a tour of these old pine stumps in the woods in a six-minute video embedded in the StoryMap, “Fire Scar Research in Historically Pine-Dominated Ozark Forests,” led by Joe Marschall, a senior research associate at the Center for Tree-Ring Science.
This video reflects a partnership between the Center and the Mark Twain National Forest, where a large-scale fire history research project is underway. Scientists and foresters have collected samples from more than 400 old shortleaf pine stumps and snags, many dead for a hundred years or more. “With the Forest Service’s help, we’re able to read, on a landscape scale, the natural history stored in these old tree remnants, recovering them before they deteriorate or burn,” Marschall said.
Another section of “Fire in the Ozarks” covers current use of prescribed fire, showing how Ozark landowners, large and small, are relearning the techniques, challenges and benefits of intentionally applying fire to the land. A second embedded video, “Remembering Fire” recounts community-wide controlled burn practices in the mid-1900s, as told by a Summersville, Missouri, woodsman born in 1928.
To view “Fire in the Ozarks,” visit https://oakfirescience.com/fire-in-the-ozarks/.