Epsilon Archive for Student Projects

Abstract

Historical fire activity was reconstructed for Scots pine stands on the Onega Peninsula, Arkhangelsk Region, using dendrochronological dating of fire scars. The fire chronology spans 1385–1942 and includes 98 fire scars representing 40 unique fire years. Regime-shift analysis identified alternating periods of shorter and longer fire cycles, with the strongest increase in fire occurrence during 1670–1820. Fire seasonality was dominated by early- and middle-season scars.

Historical land-use evidence indicates that the period of elevated fire occurrence coincided with intensive salt production and inland fuelwood extraction. Superposed epoch analysis linked selected large fire years to drier-than-average conditions in the preceding year, while recorded fire years overlapping the instrumental period were associated with negative North Atlantic–Arctic sea-surface temperature anomalies.

The results indicate that fire activity on the Onega Peninsula varied through time in association with both land-use history and climatic conditions. The modern period showed the lowest reconstructed burned area, expressed as the longest fire cycle on the record.