Wildland Arson as Clandestine Resource Management: A Space–Time Permutation Analysis and Classification of Informal Fire Management Regimes in Georgia, USA Michael R. Coughlan 1 Received: 19 February 2015 / Accepted: 2 February 2016 Ó Springer Science+Business Media New York 2016 Abstract Forest managers are increasingly recognizing the value of disturbance-based land management tech- niques such as prescribed burning. Unauthorized, ‘‘arson’’ fires are common in the southeastern United States where a legacy of agrarian cultural heritage persists amidst an increasingly forest-dominated landscape. This paper reex- amines unauthorized fire-setting in the state of Georgia, USA from a historical ecology perspective that aims to contribute to historically informed, disturbance-based land management. A space–time permutation analysis is employed to discriminate systematic, management-ori- ented unauthorized fires from more arbitrary or socially deviant fire-setting behaviors. This paper argues that sta- tistically significant space–time clusters of unauthorized fire occurrence represent informal management regimes linked to the legacy of traditional land management prac- tices. Recent scholarship has pointed out that traditional management has actively promoted sustainable resource use and, in some cases, enhanced biodiversity often through the use of fire. Despite broad-scale displacement of traditional management during the 20th century, informal management practices may locally circumvent more formal and regionally dominant management regimes. Space–time permutation analysis identified 29 statistically significant fire regimes for the state of Georgia. The identified regimes are classified by region and land cover type and their implications for historically informed disturbance-based resource management are discussed. Keywords Fire use Á Fire management Á Informal management regimes Á Fire ecology Á Disturbance-based management Á Historical ecology Introduction Wildland arson fires are broadcast landscape fires set without the explicit authorization of governing state agencies or without the formal consent of the legally rec- ognized land owner. In the fire prone forests of the Southeastern United States, where the legacy of agrarian cultural heritage persists amidst an increasingly forest- dominated landscape, these unauthorized ignitions rank alongside accidental ignitions in wildfire causes (Coughlan 2013; Grala and Cooke 2010; Lafon et al. 2005; Prestemon and Butry 2010). From a conventional land management perspective, unauthorized fires are assumed to be undesir- able ecological and socioeconomic disturbances. Never- theless, the diversity, structure, and function of forests are everywhere shaped by ecological disturbance regimes (Attiwill 1994). As a consequence, forest managers are increasingly recognizing the value of disturbance-based land management techniques such as prescribed burning (Long 2009). Although prescribed burning efforts in the Southeastern US pioneered this growing trend in land management (Stoddard 1935; Way 2006), unauthorized fire remains remarkably understudied as a distinct disturbance regime (Prestemon and Butry 2010). This paper reexami- nes unauthorized fire-setting in the Southeastern US state of Georgia from a historical ecology perspective that aims to contribute to historically informed, disturbance-based land management (Braje and Rick 2013; Swetnam et al. 1999). & Michael R. Coughlan coughlan@uga.edu 1 Department of Anthropology, University of Georgia, 250 Baldwin Hall, Athens, GA 30602-1619, USA 123 Environmental Management DOI 10.1007/s00267-016-0669-3