Farmers, flames, and forests: Historical ecology of pastoral fire use and landscape change in the French Western Pyrenees, 1830–2011

• Associations between pastoral fire and land use change are described.
• Topography provides a key control for land and fire use preferences.
• Social institutions affect fire use patterns through inherited constraints.
• Landscape change and fire use decisions are linked at a fine scale.

The human use of fire is a major disturbance factor shaping the long term composition and patterning of temperate forest landscapes. Yet, knowledge of the role of human agency in the historical dynamics of fire in temperate forests remains vague. This paper presents a cross-scale Bayesian Weights of Evidence analysis of change in the spatial patterns of fire use over the last 180 years for a village territory in the Basque portion of the French Pyrenees. Research investigated the historical relationships between social institutions that control land use, the spatial patterning of fire use, and landscape change. Analysis considered the spatial contexts within which humans use and manage land: the household institution and the parcel unit of land management. Bayesian methods established statistically significant associations between social and ecological factors driving fire use and landscape change. These associations suggest that social institutions differentially affected fire use patterns through inherited constraints. The resulting socioecological legacies helped to explain the spatial patterns of landscape change. Uncertainty highlighted in the modeling process suggests that we need a better understanding of the historical ecological dynamics of household institutions and land use change in order to better explain relationships between variability in land use intensity and the fire regime.