Help me choose a dissertation research topic in fire ecology.

April 4, 2007 3:15 PM

As a PhD student experienced in practical firefighting and, er, not so much in research, I'm having difficulty figuring out what to do my doctoral research in fire ecology on.

A former firefighter of various stripes (Smokejumper, Hotshot, and even a little structural work thrown in) I eventually decided to go back to school to get a PhD in fire ecology after working for fire and environmental organizations in countries from Australasia to Africa and Central America and Europe.

I got into a great school, and am working with a great professor. I even secured funding for myself. It, too, is great: substantial, and flexible enough that I can do any kind of research that suits me.

That's the problem. I have wide-ranging interests and am fascinated by all sorts of issues regarding fire and sustainability, community-based fire management in industrialized nations and the developing world, and the development (or lack thereof) of a sense of individual responsibility for living/altering/working in fire-prone areas. I'm really interested in the impact of global warming on fire regimes. To put a fine point on it, I'm having difficulty defining a dissertation research project.

I realize this is a rather specialized question, and I'm asking for specialized answers: all of the general topic ideas that I need I can self-generate (that, indeed, is the problem).

Any ideas of pressing fire questions that no one else has addressed? The more specific the better.

A few other pieces of information that might help: I speak french and spanish (in addition to, you know, english). I'm a very experienced firefighter. Not so experienced as a researcher. Thanks for reading, and I appreciate any thoughts people might have. . .

posted by arnicae to education (17 comments total)

In California there are a couple of interesting firefighting issues -- how to prevent urban forest fires (see Berkeley fire of 1991), and the use of state prison inmates to prevent and fight fires. (The inmate fire camps have become their own world -- can you do something anthropology-esque? Also, assignment to fire camp is considered to be the plum job in prison.)
posted by ClaudiaCenter at 4:03 PM on April 4, 2007

Yeah, seconding the California issues. You could map how rural "ranchette" development adds to the fuel problem (that houses are more fuel than grass and burn hotter, basically). You could look at historical fires and see whether housing development changes how the fire behaves. Some work's been done, but my impression from a recent presentation was that more is needed.
posted by salvia at 4:17 PM on April 4, 2007

I know nothing about fire fighting. However, there are a lot of books focused on the question of how to develop and pursue a dissertation topic. Your campus bookstore should have a shelf-full. This is something most people, in most disciplines (at least, the ones who aren't just working on a part of their adviser's research), face.

The best dissertation topics are finite, yet connect to exciting things. Finite is important, because you want to be able to actually finish the project. And connecting to exciting things in your field is key, because otherwise who cares?

Ideally, when asked this exact question ("I'm having difficulty defining a dissertation research project") your adviser will be helpful. If he or she isn't, then does your department have a director of graduate studies? Someone who teaches a research methods class? Even the chair of the department becomes someone you can go to and ask this question. Their input matters more than does ours, because you have to live with them for the next five or so years.

I'd guess, without really knowing for sure, that your language and cross-cultural skills are relatively rare in the fire ecology world (my stereotype, at least, is that people would often specialize in one country or one region only, though that may not be true). If I am right, and you are somewhat unusual for that, then I would strongly encourage you to look at a research project that capitalized on that. Say, looking at slash-and-burn agriculture in both Brazil and West Africa. Or, urban firefighting methods in South Africa, Australia, and France. Something I've always been amazed by when traveling is how poorly equipped urban fire departments are in most countries in the developing world, compared to North America and Europe, and yet those guy still come out on the trucks and run into the buildings -- there is a story there about professional identification, culture, and so on, that maybe hasn't been told well. (And rural firefighters are even more poorly equipped and trained, and yet they still go out there and fight the fires.) So if your program is friendly to more anthropological and cultural research, that is a possible direction.
posted by Forktine at 4:29 PM on April 4, 2007

Use of fire by indigenous people to create anthropogenic environments. Especially, can these be revived to double as fire management tools? Or, long term history of fire as a tool to manage ecosystems as known via core samples, charcoal, palynology, etc. These have been investigated generally, but each region needs its own study and has its own story to tell.

Fire management and suppresion [e.g., bulldozers, fire breaks]: their impact on other resources such as archaeological sites, policy to minimize these.
posted by Rumple at 4:51 PM on April 4, 2007

IMHO, Askmefi is not the place to ask for a dissertation topic. I'd say search web of science for current articles on fire ecology (particularly recent review papers). Find out what the interesting unanswered questions are. Then figure out what you like and talk to people (particularly professors). They always come up with suggestions for other people to contact, systems to consider etc. Also talk to your major professor and other grad students in your lab. You might also consider presenting your ideas (once you have a few) to a brown bag lunch group and see what they think.

PS: Good luck! (I'm also an ecology doctoral student).
posted by special-k at 5:40 PM on April 4, 2007

YES!!!!

Land Trusts, Parks and Conservancys in CA are facing a huge problem now with all the land they have acquired. The neighbours/ local govt.s want it managed for fuel load and that is a) is often contrary to their mission b) costs $$ and and c) is absolutely. impossible. to raise grant funding for. Rural residential development and unpermitted building is, of course, making this a hot topic and it will only get worse. Research to determine whether it is in fact a problem or not, a model to determine which parcels being considered for acquisition have the least chance of needing intensive management or practical methods to deal with it are questions that desperately need answering. lots of experimental plots out there too.

The other one that you might not have considered is the effect of suppressing fire on nutrient recycling and forest health, in particular tree health, in particular tan oak and resistance to SOD. I think UC Davis is already looking at that and of course the whole topic is muddied by the loss of oceanic nutrients assoc with salmon but still quite interesting.
posted by fshgrl at 5:46 PM on April 4, 2007 [1 favorite]

fshgrl - where can I read more about these issues? I'm not a grad student, but I am a parks volunteer, and I spend a lot of time outdoors in the Bay Area. Thanks!

/slight derail
posted by rtha at 6:34 PM on April 4, 2007

I'm going to talk around a subject and perhaps you can pull something out of it. Last summer there was a fairly big fire in Northern MN (my FPP on it), so as of this year there is going to a lot of new growth, concurrently another big topic buzzing around about the same region is how global warming effects may change the ecological makeup of that same region the fire occurred in fairly quickly, I don't know if you have the time for such a thing but I think something studying ecological regrowth in a system that may already be changing because of other factors would be interesting. Is new growth consistent with what would be expected in the area, or are there measurable changes that may point to how the entire area may end up...

I'm sure there are many areas that would fit the basic critera, just speaking about the one I know the best.
posted by edgeways at 6:45 PM on April 4, 2007

You do not have an email address listed. If you email me I can put you in touch with someone who is a former firefighter and current Humanities Ph.D. He might have some leads for you.
posted by MLIS at 6:55 PM on April 4, 2007

Hey guys,

I may have led you astray by mentioning my anthro/social leanings; my program is pretty concretely quantitative vs. social, and a fence-sitting project usually takes 3x as long, or is never, ever approved by the thesis committee.

Just seeing what's out there, Special-K. Never underestimate the power of ask.metafilter! I appreciate the advice, but, as I already read all the literature available in the fields I'm interested in, and have all your other points covered, I'm casting farther afield.
posted by arnicae at 7:11 PM on April 4, 2007

Here's the response from a friend who just wrote a book in this area. I can put you in touch if you reach me through the e-mail in my profile.

I did a MS on fire stuff but focused on policy aspects and then wrote a book that covered both ecology and policy of fire. I think there's a big need out there for basic ecological research on fire regimes in any systems that don't follow the high-frequency/low-intensity pattern that land management agencies seem to have seized on as the ultimate solution to all our fire problems. A couple of people have done this kind of research recently (and of course many foresters and fire gurus had it figured out decades ago), but the ponderosa pine-centric fire research coming out of Northern Arizona University and a few other places has really dominated the fire management dialogue of late. Good people to look for are C.J. Fotheringham on California chaparral, James Agee on northwestern forests, and Tanya Schoennagel and various colleagues for a good big-picture view of how fire regimes vary across the west. If you haven't already read Wright and Bailey's book, _Fire Ecology_, you should do so as soon as possible. That might be a good way to get excited about one particular ecosystem, if that's what you're interested in. You might also keep in mind the fact that the U.S. Forest Service has close ties with its French and Spanish equivalents - Armando Gonzalez-Caban at the USFS's Pacific Southwest Research Center in Riverside, CA, would be a good person to talk to about the latter. My impression from attending a fire conference in Spain a few years back was that managers there are just starting to get on the fire-use bandwagon, so it might make an interesting comparative study for someone with a bunch of money on their hands.
posted by croutonsupafreak at 7:25 PM on April 4, 2007

Do not pass go. Go visit your reference desk at your university library.
There you will find people skilled in research that can help you with your options. They know what databases are going to be more helpful for you, they know what kind of things they have access to, and most importantly, if you find the history librarian, they're going to know what's in your archives.
I sense that you're definitely looking for some original materials. Your archives coordinators may be invaluable to you on your search and the Cadastral Surveys are going to be your friend.
This is not so much 'fire ecology topics' as some ideas for research methods.
posted by lilithim at 8:34 PM on April 4, 2007

Sigh, I was thinking along the lines that Rumple was. From my perspective (prof with expertise in social/devt/ecological issues), there are not nearly enough folks examining the interactions between what gets categorized as scientific and that which gets categorized as socio-cultural. If you've got skills from both sides and can integrate them in an ecological framework, then chances are you've got original research.

But, if you are dedicated to the purely quantitative (dark) side, then it's beyond my direct expertise.

One potential lead: have you seen the DVD by David Suzuki called 'the Sacred Balance'? It's really fantastic. The book (same title) is ok, but the DVD is far better. Now, yes, it's an integrative approach, but in it there's a great interview in it with Stephen Pyne.

Here's a quote: "The planet now has too much combustion and not enough fire. We need to recover our lost understanding of what fire means in the world." - Stephen Pyne (Arizona State U- Life Sciences)

Perhaps Pyne's work might give you some leads for a quantitative topic which would also allow you to tap into your broader experience and expertise.

Yes of course (special-K) you should talk to your advisor, etc., but if that's all you did, we wouldn't get to enjoy thinking and hearing about your question.
posted by kch at 8:46 PM on April 4, 2007

Steve's (Pyne) recent address to the V International Forestry Conference in Portugal was a bit of what has inspired this soul-searching: he's strongly advocating conceiving of fire as a study-able entity, as much akin to an animal as a biological process, which would push the fuddy-duddies in my field to think of fire in new ways. Before, I had a bit of a fuddy-duddy project planned, now, I'm finding it difficult to plan a quantitative project.

I'm with you, Kch, but I'm planning to go into policy after I finish up, and want to have what the current movers-and-shakers consider a strong academic background. I think you understand that I don't mean any offense, it simply is difficult to be taken seriously by the quantitative scientists in the field if you don't have one big quantitative project.
posted by arnicae at 8:57 PM on April 4, 2007

On the qualitativbe-quantitative divide -- you can have both, you know. I was on a recent PHD supervisory committee for a student who was looking at long term ecology of Camassia, and its relationship to/dependence on (anthropogenic) fire. She did test plots, nursery studies, fire treatment, multiple re-measurements, stats, yadda yadda, and yet, she also did ethnographic work, ethnohistorical, anything she could get her hands on to look at historical ecology of Camassia. So, you do not need to fall into the false dichotomy some call "soul-less method" vs. "methodless soul". And certainly for policy, it is valuable to have a sense of the cultural as well as the biological -- I mean, policy is itself a cultural activity that helps define human ecology.
posted by Rumple at 9:37 PM on April 4, 2007

Many of Pyne's conclusions deserve to be re-examined in depth. Much of his work needs a good challenge. I've got a copy of "A Brief History of Fire" that I've tried to read several times and thrown it down in disgust over some of the stuff he has written.

How about a paleobotany study of dominant vegetation prior to human manipulation by the use of fire, based on plant pollens contained in the La Brea pits or in deep marine or fresh water sediments. How prevelant were fire dependent and fire adapted plants prior to human activity in North America? Or alternatively could there have been a link involving climate change and change in fire frequency/severity linked to the most recent mega-faunal extinction?
posted by X4ster at 11:25 PM on April 4, 2007

Ice cores appear to confirm big boreal forest fires from previous warmings; this time around, it might make more sense to cut pre-emptively and plant for fire resistance rather than let events run their course to conflagration and push lower boundaries of these forests much farther north (and up the sides of mountains) than they might have to be with effective management.

Timber interests will start using this to push for more and more cutting, if they haven't already, and it is such a powerful argument that they will probably be able to stampede policy too far unless some credible model is put in place to tenatively redraw the boundaries of potential forests under a changed regime of climate.

If your thesis research could contribute to a set of relatively readily measured criteria to draw this line in a given forest, I bet you could step into a significant policy postion on one side or the other fairly easily after you graduate.
posted by jamjam at 10:09 AM on April 5, 2007