Fire regimes, fire ecology, and fire management in Mexico

Ambio. 2008 Dec;37(7-8):548-56. doi: 10.1579/0044-7447-37.7.548.

Abstract

I propose several broad fire regimes and provide an analysis of fire ecology for the principal vegetation types in Mexico. Forty percent of Mexican ecosystems are fire-dependent (pine forests, several oak forests, grasslands, several shrublands, savannas, palm lands, wet prairies, "popal" and "tular" swamps), 50% are fire-sensitive (tropical rain forests and tropical seasonal forests, tropical cloud forests, mangrove, fir forests, several oak forests, and several shrublands), and the remaining 10% fall into fire-influenced (such as several gallery forests) and fire-independent categories (shrublands in most xeric environments, very high-altitude prairies). I also present an analysis of current fire-management trends, highlighting the trend toward integral fire management, which merges prevention and control, community-based fire management, and ecological fire management.

MeSH terms

  • Conservation of Natural Resources / trends*
  • Ecology*
  • Ecosystem*
  • Fires*
  • Mexico
  • Trees