A vocabulary of landscape — a landscape of words
1083 entries
fire regime
The characteristic pattern of fire in a landscape: its frequency, intensity, seasonality, severity, and extent. Not a single fire but the rhythm of fire over time — how often, how hot, what season, what burns. Change any element and you change the regime, and with it the ecology. A ponderosa forest and a chaparral slope have utterly different fire regimes, and each ecosystem is built around its own.
Etymology
“Regime” from French “régime,” from Latin “regimen” (rule, guidance, direction), from “regere” (to rule, direct). Applied to ecology in the 20th century to describe recurring, rule-governed disturbance patterns — fire regime, flood regime, disturbance regime.