Tussock Replacement as a Means of Stabilizing Fire Breaks in Tundra Vegetation

• Main Authors: William A. Patterson Iii, John G. Dennis
• Other Authors: The Pennsylvania State University CiteSeerX Archives
• Format: Text
• Language: English
• Subjects: Arctic; Seward Peninsula; Tundra; Alaska
• Online Access: http://citeseerx.ist.psu.edu/viewdoc/summary?doi=10.1.1.509.3681; http://pubs.aina.ucalgary.ca/arctic/Arctic34-2-188.pdf

Fire generally is not considered an important factor in tundra ecosystems. Cool, moist summer weather, low plant productivity resulting in a minimum amount of fuel, and low human population densities combine to deter fires. Northwestern Alaska, and the Seward Peninsula in particular, may be exceptions to this generality. Periodic summer droughts and frequent thunderstorms during the snowfree period produced several major tundra fires in this area during the last decade (Wein, 1976; Racine and Racine, 1978). Because these fires threatened local native villages and their associated reindeer range, the U.S. Bureau of Land Management pursued an active policy of fire containment. The use of bulldozers to scrape away surface accumula-tions of organic matter generally is considered an impor-