Abstract
Wildfire is a prevalent issue in the southern Rocky Mountains. A large portion of land within the southern Rocky Mountains is federally owned public lands that are extremely prone to wildfire as a result of active wildfire suppression throughout the nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Public lands in the United States were originally created to properly manage natural resources, however, throughout the twentieth century outdoor recreation became increasingly prevalent, providing even greater human access to large volumes of forested public lands. This research analyzes the influence that outdoor recreation and human accessibility have on anthropogenic wildfire occurrence and size on public lands in the southern Rocky Mountains, using San Juan National Forest in southwestern Colorado as the study site. The statistical methodologies of case–control logistic regression analysis, multivariate regression analysis, and descriptive statistics are implemented. Geographic variables are also analyzed to gain a greater understanding of the anthropogenic wildfire regime in this region. Results demonstrate the importance of accessibility on anthropogenic wildfire occurrence and specific activities associated with outdoor recreation that play a major role in directing the pattern of anthropogenic wildfire. The results demonstrate that anthropogenic wildfires occur as a result of activities such as overnight camping in remote portions of the forest, day usage on vehicle trails, and where there are clusters of designated campsites. It is also demonstrated that anthropogenic wildfire pattern is influenced by the geography of the landscape.
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Availability of data and material
LF Program (2020) Landscape Fire and Resource Management Planning Tools. Available from https://www.landfire.gov/. Accessed March 10 2020. Martinuzzi S, Stewart SI, Helmers DP, Mockrin MH, Hammer RB, Radeloff VC (2015) The 2010 wildland-urban interface of the conterminous United States-geospatial data. National Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) (2020). Geospatial Data Gateway: Home. Available from https://datagateway.nrcs.usda.gov/. Accessed October 15 2019. U.S. Forest Service, United States Department of Agriculture. (2020e). Geodata Clearinghouse. https://data.fs.usda.gov/geodata/edw/datasets.php Accessed February 6 2020.
Code availability
This analysis was performed implementing R statistical computing software using these two code snippets for a case control logistical regression analysis for anthropogenic wildfire occurrence analysis (Code Snippet 1), and multivariate regression analysis for anthropogenic wildfire size analysis (Code Snippet 2).
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Acknowledgements
Benefield acknowledges the Department of Geography at the University of North Alabama where he obtained his undergraduate and graduate education. It was the program’s interactive field courses where his interest in the Rocky Mountain region began.
Funding
University of North Alabama Freddie Wood Geography Research and Travel Grant University of North alabama College of Arts and Sciences Student Travel Grant.
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Benefield, A., Chen, J. Examining the influence of outdoor recreation on anthropogenic wildfire regime of the southern Rocky Mountains. Nat Hazards 111, 523–545 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-021-05065-1
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11069-021-05065-1