A Multi-Century Fire History from the Potomac Highlands of West Virginia

abstract:Tree-ring reconstructions of past fire activity provide context for forest management and restoration plans. Our primary objective in this study was to develop a new fire history in the Potomac Highlands of West Virginia where published reconstructions are particularly sparse, but efforts to develop prescribed fire plans are on the rise. We produced a 293-year (1727–2019) post-settlement fire history from 57 yellow pine (P. pungens, P. rigida, and P. virginiana) trees spread across five topographically diverse sites on Short Mountain in Hampshire County. The filtered composite mean fire interval was 7–15 years at individual sites, while a landscape-scale analysis indicates that fire frequency did not change over nearly 160 years (1855–2011). Fires, however, were significantly less extensive during the "exclusion era" (post-1930). No conclusive relationships between drought and fire were identified, although the most extensive fire year (1930) was uniquely dry. These findings complement existing regional fire histories and provide a new context for the application of prescribed fire in the Potomac Highlands.