Invasive Grass Fuels Increased Fire Activity in the West

 

Scientists used satellite imagery to identify cheatgrass which is a plant species accidentally introduced by settlers in the West during the 1800s, in a disproportionately high number of fires in the Great Basin."Over the past decade, cheatgrass fueled the majority of the largest fires, influencing 39 of the largest 50 fires," said Jennifer Balch, assistant professor, Penn State's Department of Geography and Earth and Environmental Systems Institute. "That's much higher than what it should be when you consider how much of the Great Basin that cheatgrass covers." In addition to targeting the influence of cheatgass on major fires, the researchers, who reported their findings in the online version of Global Change Biology, also found that the plant may play a role in increasing the frequency of fires. One of the consequences of more widespread cheatgrass fires is that landscapes dominated by the grass have a shorter fire-return interval (which is the time between fires in a region) of the 78 years, compared to other species like sagebrush, which has a 196-year fire return interval. "What's happening is that cheatgrass is creating a novel grass-fire cycle that makes future fires more likely," said Balch, who started this work at the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis. "Fire promotes cheatgrass and cheatgrass promotes fires." "What you end up seeing is that most years when it is dry, the cheatgrass doesn't grow much," said Bradley. "But when there are wet seasons that occur due to the El Nino cycle, cheatgrass cover is very dense and continuous." Using a satellite they can detect the cheatgrass. Being able to monitor the cheat grass gives the researchers the ability to detect the fire activity along the Great Basin. I just think it’s crazy that one invasive species could make such a great impact on an environment. My solution to this problem is to try to remove all of the grass from the area to provent future fire activity. The prblem with this solution is that it is going to be very hard to remove grass from such a big area.

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/12/121205132357.htm