{"xmlId":"85621","NOAAStudyId":"45220","studyName":"Saladyga fire data from Big Pine Knob, Appalachian Plateau - IMPD USBPK001","doi":"https://doi.org/10.25921/8691-jk32","uuid":"e75c4f6a-12be-44e7-9393-261a3109dac5","dataPublisher":"NOAA","contactInfo":{"type":"CONTACT INFORMATION","shortName":"DOC/NOAA/NESDIS/NCEI","longName":"National Centers for Environmental Information, NESDIS, NOAA, U.S. Department of Commerce ","address":"325 Broadway, E/NE31","city":"Boulder","state":"CO","postalCode":"80305-3328","country":"USA","dataCenterUrl":"https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/products/paleoclimatology","email":"paleo@noaa.gov","phone":"828-271-4800","fax":null,"constraints":"Please cite original publication, online resource, dataset and publication DOIs (where available), and date accessed when using downloaded data. If there is no publication information, please cite investigator, title, online resource, and date accessed. The appearance of external links associated with a dataset does not constitute endorsement by the Department of Commerce/National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration of external Web sites or the information, products or services contained therein. For other than authorized activities, the Department of Commerce/NOAA does not exercise any editorial control over the information you may find at these locations. These links are provided consistent with the stated purpose of this Department of Commerce/NOAA Web site."},"dataType":"FIRE HISTORY","investigators":"Saladyga, T.; Maxwell, R.S.; Manning, D.R.; Raso, C.","investigatorDetails":[{"firstName":"Thomas","lastName":"Saladyga","initials":"T.","orcId":"0000-0002-6304-4428"},{"firstName":"R. Stockton","lastName":"Maxwell","initials":"R.S.","orcId":"0000-0002-4811-5929"},{"firstName":"Douglas","lastName":"Manning","initials":"D.R.","orcId":null},{"firstName":"Chance","lastName":"Raso","initials":"C.","orcId":null}],"version":"1.0","funding":[],"studyNotes":"Fire scars occurring between annual rings (i.e., dormant season) were assigned to the year after scarring.\r\n\r\nSample Storage Location: Fayetteville, West Virginia (tsaladyga@appheadwaters.org)\r\nDating Method: crossdated\r\nRelated ITRDB_Chronology: Not Applicable\r\n\r\nFire scar data from this site are available in FHX2 format at:\r\n  https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/firehistory/firescar/northamerica/usbpk001.fhx\r\nalong with associated metadata at:\r\n  https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/firehistory/firescar/northamerica/usbpk001-fhx-noaa.txt","onlineResourceLink":"https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/paleo-search/study/45220","difMetadataLink":"https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/pub/data/metadata/published/paleo/dif/xml/noaa-fire-45220.xml","isoMetadataLink":"https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/pub/data/metadata/published/paleo/iso/xml/noaa-fire-45220.xml","originalSource":null,"dataTypeInformation":"https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/products/paleoclimatology/fire-history","studyCode":"USBPK001","scienceKeywords":null,"reconstruction":"N","contributionDate":"2026-07-24","entryId":"noaa-fire-45220","earliestYearBP":112,"mostRecentYearBP":-74,"earliestYearCE":1838,"mostRecentYearCE":2024,"publication":[{"author":{"name":"Saladyga, T.; Maxwell, R.S."},"pubYear":2026,"title":"Industrialization Drives a Late-19th-Century Pulse in Appalachian Fire Activity","journal":"Journal of Biogeography","volume":"53","edition":null,"issue":"7","pages":null,"reportNumber":null,"citation":"Saladyga, T.; Maxwell, R.S. 2026. Industrialization Drives a Late-19th-Century Pulse in Appalachian Fire Activity. Journal of Biogeography, 53(7). doi: 10.1111/jbi.70301","type":"publication","identifier":{"type":"doi","id":"10.1111/jbi.70301","url":"http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/jbi.70301"},"abstract":"Aim: Fire has long influenced forests in the Appalachian Mountains of eastern North America, but the extent to which 19thcentury industrialization reshaped regional fire regimes remains less understood. We evaluated whether industrial-era fire activity represented a statistically extreme departure from longer-term variability and examined how fire activity was organized across the region during and after industrialization.\r\nLocation: Appalachian Mountains, USA.\r\nTaxon: Pinus spp.\r\nMethods: We compiled tree-ring fire-scar records from 66 Appalachian sites and analyzed annual network fire occurrence\r\nusing a core network of 32 sites with sufficient temporal coverage between 1800 and 1950. We identified regime shifts in regional fire activity, evaluated relationships with reconstructed drought variability, examined spatial patterns of shared fire years amongsites, and mapped post-1950 fire persistence across the broader network.\r\nResults: Network fire occurrence increased during the late 19th century before collapsing during the early 20th century.\r\nElevated fire activity coincided with rapid railroad expansion and broader industrial-era land-use change. Fire activity remainedassociated with drought throughout the record, but the timing and magnitude of the industrial-era fire pulse aligned moreclosely with industrialization and subsequent fire suppression than with shifts in reconstructed climate variability. Analyses\r\nof shared fire years among sites indicated weak spatial structuring, suggesting that elevated regional fire activity reflected geographically widespread human ignitions across heterogeneous landscapes. Post-1950 fire persistence was concentrated within the Pennsylvania anthracite and southern West Virginia coal regions.\r\nMain Conclusions: Industrialization coincided with a regional pulse in Appalachian fire activity characterized by widespread\r\nhuman ignitions associated with industrial-era land use, while climatic variability continued to modulate fire activity through\r\ntime. Persistent fire activity within Appalachian coalfield regions further suggests that industrial and post-industrial land-use legacies contributed to the uneven decline of fire activity during the suppression era.","pubRank":"1"}],"site":[{"NOAASiteId":"62219","siteName":"Big Pine Knob - IMPD USBPK001","siteCode":null,"mappable":"Y","locationName":"Continent>North America>United States Of America>West Virginia","geo":{"geoType":"Feature","geometry":{"type":"POINT","coordinates":["38.89","-80.88"]},"properties":{"southernmostLatitude":"38.89","northernmostLatitude":"38.89","westernmostLongitude":"-80.88","easternmostLongitude":"-80.88","minElevationMeters":"400","maxElevationMeters":"400"}},"paleoData":[{"dataTableName":"USBPK001","NOAADataTableId":"60111","earliestYear":1838,"mostRecentYear":2024,"timeUnit":"CE","earliestYearBP":112,"mostRecentYearBP":-74,"earliestYearCE":1838,"mostRecentYearCE":2024,"coreLengthMeters":null,"dataTableNotes":null,"species":[],"dataFile":[{"fileUrl":"https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/firehistory/firescar/northamerica/usbpk001.fhx","urlDescription":"Data - Fire History Exchange File (FHX)","linkText":"Big Pine Knob Fire Scar Data","variables":[{"cvDataType":"FIRE HISTORY|TREE RING","cvWhat":"formation property>event layer>tree demographic and injury and fire event code","cvMaterial":"biological material>tissue>wood","cvError":null,"cvUnit":"dimensionless","cvSeasonality":null,"cvDetail":null,"cvMethod":null,"cvAdditionalInfo":"text description of fire event; refer to IMPD documentation for description of codes","cvFormat":"Character","cvShortName":"rec_type"},{"cvDataType":"FIRE HISTORY|TREE RING","cvWhat":"age variable>age","cvMaterial":null,"cvError":null,"cvUnit":"time unit>age unit>year Common Era","cvSeasonality":null,"cvDetail":null,"cvMethod":null,"cvAdditionalInfo":null,"cvFormat":"Numeric","cvShortName":"age_CE"},{"cvDataType":"FIRE HISTORY|TREE RING","cvWhat":"sampling metadata>sample identification","cvMaterial":null,"cvError":null,"cvUnit":"dimensionless","cvSeasonality":null,"cvDetail":null,"cvMethod":null,"cvAdditionalInfo":null,"cvFormat":"Numeric","cvShortName":"series"}],"NOAAKeywords":["earth science>paleoclimate>fire history>fire scar dates"]},{"fileUrl":"https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/pub/data/paleo/firehistory/firescar/northamerica/usbpk001-fhx-noaa.txt","urlDescription":"Metadata - NOAA Template File","linkText":"Big Pine Knob Fire Scar Metadata","variables":[{"cvDataType":"FIRE HISTORY|TREE RING","cvWhat":"formation property>event layer>tree demographic and injury and fire event code","cvMaterial":"biological material>tissue>wood","cvError":null,"cvUnit":"dimensionless","cvSeasonality":null,"cvDetail":null,"cvMethod":null,"cvAdditionalInfo":"text description of fire event; refer to IMPD documentation for description of codes","cvFormat":"Character","cvShortName":"rec_type"},{"cvDataType":"FIRE HISTORY|TREE RING","cvWhat":"age variable>age","cvMaterial":null,"cvError":null,"cvUnit":"time unit>age unit>year Common Era","cvSeasonality":null,"cvDetail":null,"cvMethod":null,"cvAdditionalInfo":null,"cvFormat":"Numeric","cvShortName":"age_CE"},{"cvDataType":"FIRE HISTORY|TREE RING","cvWhat":"sampling metadata>sample identification","cvMaterial":null,"cvError":null,"cvUnit":"dimensionless","cvSeasonality":null,"cvDetail":null,"cvMethod":null,"cvAdditionalInfo":null,"cvFormat":"Numeric","cvShortName":"series"}],"NOAAKeywords":["earth science>paleoclimate>fire history>fire scar dates"]}]}]}],"reference":{"pastThesaurusSkos":"https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/paleo-search/skos/past-thesaurus.rdf","pastThesaurusExplorer":"https://www.ncei.noaa.gov/access/paleo-search/cvterms","gcmdKeywordThesaurus":"https://earthdata.nasa.gov/earth-observation-data/find-data/idn/gcmd-keywords"},"dataLicenseDescription":"CC0","dataLicenseUrl":"https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/"}