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  1. History, Uses, and Effects of Fire in the Appalachians

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    Author(s): David H. van Lear; Thomas A. Waldrop
    Date: 1989
    Source: Gen. Tech. Rep. SE-54. Asheville, NC: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Southeastern Forest Experiment Station. 20 p.
    Publication Series: General Technical Report (GTR)
    Station: Southeastern Forest Experiment Station
    DOI: https://doi.org/10.2737/SE-GTR-54
    PDF: View PDF  (1.0 MB)

    Description

    History of Fire in the Southern Appalachians Ecological and meteorological evidence suggests that lightning-caused fires were a major environmental force shaping the vegetation of the Southeastern United States for millions of years before Indians arrived in America. Lightning served as a mutagenic agent and as a factor in natural selection which forced species to adapt or perish. Before man, fires caused by lightning created and maintained the pine-grasslands of the Southeast, as well as influenced the broad, adjacent ecotones which included hard-wood vegetation (Komarek 1965, 1974).

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    Citation

    van Lear, David H.; Waldrop, Thomas A. 1989. History, Uses, and Effects of Fire in the Appalachians. Gen. Tech. Rep. SE-54. Asheville, NC: U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Southeastern Forest Experiment Station. 20 p.

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