Oxygen isotope values of charred tree bark as an indicator of forest fire severity
The objective of this study was to determine if oxygen isotope values of charred tree bark could be used to reconstruct fire severity. The study was completed north of River Valley, Ontario, Canada, where a wildfire burned approximately 2500 hectares of white pine (Pinus strobus L.) forest in 2018....
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| Main Authors: | , , |
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| Format: | Article |
| Language: | English |
| Published: |
Elsevier
2025-06-01
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| Series: | Trees, Forests and People |
| Subjects: | |
| Online Access: | http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S2666719325000147 |
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| Summary: | The objective of this study was to determine if oxygen isotope values of charred tree bark could be used to reconstruct fire severity. The study was completed north of River Valley, Ontario, Canada, where a wildfire burned approximately 2500 hectares of white pine (Pinus strobus L.) forest in 2018. We established a network of field plots, collected charred bark samples from standing white pine stems, and estimated burn severity based on a standard field assessment protocol known as the Composite Burn Index (CBI). We also analyzed pre- and post-fire Sentinel-2 imagery of the burn area to compute various Normalized Burn Ratio (NBR)-based change detection algorithms, which are known to produce reliable predictions of CBI. We developed simple linear regression models to predict CBI using either the δ18O values of charred bark or versions of the NBR. Models developed from the δ18O values of charred bark revealed a significant negative relationship between CBI and plot-level δ18O, with the strongest relationship being with maximum δ18O (r2 = 0.179, RMSE = 0.565). There were significant positive relationships between all NBR indices and CBI, with better fit statistics than the δ18O models. The results demonstrate that δ18O can be used as a predictor of fire severity; however, the scale of measurement of fire severity is finer (tree-level) than the plot-level CBI and NBR indices. The advantage of using the δ18O method is that it can be used to reconstruct fire severity when satellite or field data are unavailable. |
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| ISSN: | 2666-7193 |