Predicting Pinus ponderosa mortality from dormant season and growing season fire injury

Abstract. Understory prescribed burning was conducted in an immature Pinusponderosa (ponderosa pine) stand in southwestern Colorado during three seasons, late spring, midsummer, and autumn. Tree mortality from various levels of crown scorch was compared for the different seasons of injury. A total of 526 trees of different sizes, with crown scorch ranging from 20 to 100%, were moni-tored annually for 10 years. Over 80 % of the 10-year mortality from injury in all ee seasons had occurred by year 3, with over 90% ng by year 4. Mortality of trees scorched in the spring and summer was about 2.5 times greater than that in the autumn for similar crown damage. Most trees larger than 18 cm in diameter survived autumn injury, even with greater than 90 % scorching. Following spring and summer injury, trees smaller than 10 cm in diameter died readily with greater than 50 % scorching, but about 90 % crown scorch was required by large trees to be lethal. A logistic regression model was developed to pre-dict the probability of mortality given tree size, scorch class, and season of injury. Because mortality was similar within scorch classes less than 90%, they were combined into a single class. Scorch thresholds with large increases in mortality occurred at 90 % and 100% crown scorch. The season variable includes two groups, dormant (autumn) and growing (spring and summer). Use of this model to predict mortality of immature P. ponderosa is appropriate where stand, fuel, and fire conditions resemble those of this study