A FIRE HISTORY ARCHIVE: THE INTERNATIONAL MULTLIPROXY PALEOFIRE DATABASE
HARTMAN, MICHAEL, AND WOODHOUSE, CONNIE A.
NOAA Paleoclimatology Branch, National Climatic Data Center and the World Data Center for
Paleoclimatology, Boulder, Colorado, 80305
The International Multiproxy Paleofire Database (IMPD) is an archive of fire history data derived
from natural proxies. The IMPD has been established to provide a permanent repository for highquality paleofire records from around the world. The archive includes fire history records based
on both tree-ring and charcoal-sediment data, describing fire regimes at multiple temporal and
spatial scales. Tree fire scars and stand establishment dates provide temporally and spatially
precise, short-term (100s to 1000s of years) reconstructions of fire events. Charcoal in lake
sediments provides long-term (1000s to 10,000s of years) reconstructions of fire events with
coarser temporal and spatial resolution. Alluvial fan-based charcoal fire records provide
additional fire history information. Fire is an important process in terrestrial ecosystems,
modulating the susceptibility of vegetation to climate change, disease, and other disturbances.
The growing body of high-quality fire-history data being developed provides an opportunity to
investigate the role of fire in ecosystems and the feedbacks that link fire, climate, vegetation, and
management decisions. The goal of the IMPD is to archive and make available fire history data
from tree-ring and sediment data for both scientific and management needs. The current data
holdings are available from the IMPD web site at: http://www.ngdc.noaa.gov/paleo/impd/. Data
are searchable by site name, location, date, and investigator, as well as through an online
mapping tool. Paleofire data are also being solicited through online data submission forms via
the IMPD web site. The IMPD is sponsored by NOAA and the USDA, and is housed at the World
Data Center for Paleoclimatology.