My First Paper

By Kiera Smith​
My first paper is published (Brown et al., 2019)! For me, this paper represents not just my first paper but my first steps into wildfire science. It all started in the fall of 2013, when I was an undergraduate student in the co-op program at the University of Victoria. I remember being beyond excited when I saw the job posting for “paleo-fire laboratory technician”. When I received the phone call offering me the position, I was over the moon. ​

​That term, I worked as a member of the Paelofire Laboratory for Dr. Kendrick Brown at the Pacific Forestry Centre of Natural Resources Canada. I extracted samples from a lake core retrieved from the Yukon, and then counted the amount of charcoal contained in each sample.  At the end of the term, we had a record of charcoal fluctuations, the fire history of the area over the past ~11 000 years of the Holocene. 

Interested in pursuing an Honours Thesis on paleo fire, I returned four months later for a summer co-op work term. The project presented the chance to study an area where fires pose a potential threat to the local drinking supply, and fire history studies can inform fire management policies. That summer, we collected a lake sediment core from the Greater Victoria Water Supply Area. The rest of my summer involved sampling the core and counting charcoal samples. Over the next eight months, I continued data collection, analysis and writing, and ultimately finished with the successful presentation on my Honours Thesis (Smith 2015). ​

​My results provided the first assessment of fire climate variations in the water supply area and tracked how fire disturbance changed through time in response to large-scale changes in Holocene climate and anthropogenic influences. I completed an age-depth model for the core based on radiocarbon dating and analyzed it for changes in down-core charcoal. A pollen record for nearby Rhamnus Lake was used to provide a vegetation framework for the study area.  

My co-authors continued to work on this research project over the years, completing a paleo pollen analysis for the watershed, tracking vegetation shifts and developing an analysis of paleo history monthly precipitation, streamflow and temperature. They used this data to better understand how climate and fire history were related and changed over the Holocene in the water supply area. The research is helping to inform the Greater Victoria Capital Regional District about the fire activity to expect under climate change conditions. ​

These two co-op placements were instrumental in pursuing a career in wildfire. During these placements, I completed fieldwork, worked in a lab, got a taste for academic research, produced an honours thesis, and developed my professional and scientific competencies. To the UVic co-op program and Pacific Forestry Center Paleofire Laboratory, I am continually grateful for affording me these experiences. This paper has helped me to become a published author, but the work behind it set me on track to pursue a Master’s of Science and career in wildfire. 

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Brown, K.J., Hebda, N.J.R., Schoups, G. Conder, N., Smith, K.A.P, & Trofymow, J.A. (2019). Long-term climate, vegetation and fire regime change in a managed municipal water supply area, British Columbia, Canada. The Holocene. https://doi.org/10.1177/0959683619854523

Smith, K.A.P. (2015).  ‘Fire History in the Greater Victoria Water Supply Area and the Implications for Fire Management’, BSc Honours thesis. University of Victoria, Victoria, BC.