A 400-year history of fire and oak recruitment in an old-growth oak forestin western Maryland, USA

We document the fire history and associated ecological changes of an old-gr owth forest stand in western Maryland, U.S.A. The study area is located on the side slopes of a ridge system (Savage Mountain). Twenty basal cross sec tions were obtained from old trees cut in 1986, which provided evidence of 42 fires from 1615 to 1958. Nine fires were recorded in the sample trees in the 17th century, 13 in the 18th century, 12 in the 19th century, and eigh t in the early to mid-20th century. However, there were no major fire years after 1930. The Weibull modal fire interval was 7.6 years. Oaks recruited consistently from the early 1600s to the early 1900s, but there was increas ed Acer rubrum L. and Betula lenta L. recruitment with fire suppression aft er 1930. Species recruitment patterns and long-term fire history reported i n this study offer important direct support for the hypothesis that periodi c fire played an important role in the historical development and perpetuat ion of oak forests of the mid-Atlantic region before and after European set tlement.