Fire-adapted witness trees across the northeastern United States including four National Forests

Witness trees can shed light on past disturbance regimes. An interpolation technique was applied to witness-tree point data to form a contiguous surface of pyrophilic percentage for four national forests in the northeastern United States. This method was also applied to town-level witness-tree data for the entire northeastern United States. Through this, a distinct east-west line dividing area of high (south) and low (north) pyrophilic percentage was found. Known as the tension zone, the undulating character of this boundary, penetrating northward along major river valleys, underscores the importance of Native Americans as a disturbance agent on the presettlement landscape. The interpolated coverages of the percent of pyrophilic witness trees for the Allegheny, Finger Lakes, Green Mountain, and White Mountain National Forests and the town-level interpolated surface for the broader New England area are included in this data publication. The tension zone line is also included as a separate file.
The interpolated data were created to aid in landscape-scale prescribed fire planning and explore and describe the likely past disturbance regimes of the northeastern United States.
For more information about these data see Thomas-Van Gundy et al. (2015).