[SRM] Fw: Fire in the Sonoran Desert - looking for speakers for November

Fri May 3 09:27:28 MST 2024

Mitch McClaran
Professor of Range Management, School of Natural Resources and the Environment
Director for Research, Santa Rita Experimental Range
Director, Arizona Experiment Station
Division of Agriculture, Life and Veterinary Sciences and Cooperative Extension
University of Arizona
520-390-9801 (cell)
520-621-1673 (office)
http://snre.arizona.edu/people/mitch-mcclaran
Office Location: 112 Biological Sciences East
________________________________
From: Lata, Mary - FS, AZ <mary.lata at usda.gov>
Sent: Friday, May 3, 2024 9:07 AM
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Cc: Molly McCormick <Molly.McCormick at nau.edu>
Subject: [EXT]Fire in the Sonoran Desert - looking for speakers for November

External Email

Hello everyone,

In December of 2023 Molly McCormick and I organized and successfully put together a Special Session and a ‘Fire Circle’ on Fire in the Sonoran Desert. There was a good mix of managers, researchers, and implementers, though we were light on Decision Makers (thanks Adam!) The Southwest Fire Science Consortium is organizing the 4th Southwest Fire Ecology Conference in Santa Fe in November, right before Thanksgiving. I hope you will consider the value of your experience in this area and help make this another successful session. Each talk is expected to be 15 minutes long.

https://swfireconference.org/cfp-ss/

In order to submit, I will eventually need a title, your name, and your affiliation. Right now, I just need a serious commitment by May 15th that you will present something on this topic.

Below is my drafty-draft abstract for the session which, thus far, is almost identical to the one I submitted for the Fire in the Sonoran Desert session for the AFE Congress in Monterey. Feel free to make suggestions for edits and please spread far and wide to any colleagues you think might be interested. If you have contacts in Mexico, be sure to include them – I don’t know what has been occurring south of the boarder, but it would be of significant interest as well.

The ecological trajectory of the Sonoran Desert is largely unknown, though large areas are fast becoming frequent fire systems driven primarily (but not exclusively) by introduced grasses augmented by non-native winter annual forbs. Little is known about the historic fire regimes of the Sonoran Desert prior to the influx of non-native grasses, because there is little evidence other than photos to determine natural fuel structure, or the evaluation of fires’ effects on ecosystems and individual species. Fuel structure and loading varies tremendously within the Sonoran Desert but the native vegetation in the Sonoran Desert mostly occurred in clumps separated by areas that were mostly bare most of the time. The upper elevations of the Sonoran Desert interface directly with Semi-Desert Grasslands where frequent fire is a keystone ecological process. These grasslands are the most flammable in June, when dry lightning is common, and fires would have burned until they were rained out or ran out of contiguous fuel…which would have happened when they burned into the Sonoran Desert prior to the introduction of non-native grasses. It is generally assumed that, historically, desert fires were infrequent and ecologically insignificant, and yet there are many native plants of the Sonoran Desert that survive even high intensity (hot) fire by sprouting;  seeds of many species survive low severity fire in the spaces between clumps of vegetation to germinate and flower when precipitation and temperatures are favorable; and many cacti can survive low intensity (cool) fire. When conditions are favorable, these species produce a contiguous bed of fine surface fuel capable of carrying a cool, patchy fire fast and far. So it is likely that fire had some kind of a role of fire in the historic Sonoran Desert, but it is poorly understood. And it is changing fast. The Sonoran Desert is being destabilized by introduced grasses and winter annual forbs, and land managers, implementers, and decision-makers need to better understand the potential ecological trajectories of the Sonoran Desert, and to identify management actions that will be sustainable for the ecological future of the Sonoran Desert.

Mary Lata

Fire Ecologist

Tonto National Forest

928-474-7994 (office)

928-203-6245 (cell)

1009 E. Highway 260

Payson, Arizona 85541

mary.lata at usda.gov<mailto:mary.lata at usda.gov>

Mary Lata

Fire Ecologist

Tonto National Forest

928-203-6245 (cell)

1009 E. Highway 260

Payson, Arizona 85541

mary.lata at usda.gov<mailto:mary.lata at usda.gov>

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