Brent L. Brock Patrick H. Brose James B. Grace G. A. Hoch William A. Patterson III Dale D. Wade 2000 <p>Prior to Euro-American settlement, fire was a ubiquitous force across most of the Eastern United States.&nbsp;Fire regimes spanned a time-scale from chronic to&nbsp;centuries. Fire severity varied from benign to extreme&nbsp;(fig. 1-2). Today, fire is still a major force on the&nbsp;landscape. In some ecosystems fire stabilizes succession at a particular sere, while in others, succession is set back to pioneer species. The wide range in fire&nbsp;regimes coupled with elevation and moisture gradients produce a myriad of plant communities&nbsp; that&nbsp;continually change over time in both stature and&nbsp;composition, although it is not uncommon for the&nbsp;major species to remain dominant. Discussion is primarily about major vegetation types, for example,&nbsp;oak-hickory. However, some minor types such as&nbsp;spruce-fir and Table Mountain pine are also covered.&nbsp;Vegetation types are discussed under the most representative fire regime type, recognizing that some vegetation types overlap two fire regime types (table 4-1).</p> application/pdf 10.2737/RMRS-GTR-42-V2 en U. S. Department of Agriculture Fire in eastern ecosystems reports