Management strategies to reduce fire spread and severity typically involve targeted reduction of forest fuels through some combination of mechanical, hand, and/or burning treatments. A 2012 study by Safford et al. evaluates the effectiveness of such forest fuel treatments in mixed conifer and yellow pine forests in the California National Forests.
Read MoreIn the April issue of Ecological Applications, USGS scientists Kyle Merriam (currently with the USFS) and Dr. Jon Keeley and USFS colleague Dr. Jan Beyers report that an unintended result of these fuel modification programs can be the introduction and spread of nonnative invasive plant species.
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Two studies led by USGS and the Conservation Biology Institute have examined the factors affecting fuel break effectiveness in national forests.
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In a paper published in Fire Management Today, USGS scientist Jon Keeley coauthors a paper with colleagues from the California Chaparral Institute that analyzes weather and fuel factors in a case study of a critical part of the 2003 Cedar Fire perimeter in San Diego County.
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Resource managers in the 1950's believed that “brush removal” optimized the production value of acreage.
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Jason Greenlee and Jean Langenheim combined fire scar dating, historical documents and fire behavior modeling to reconstruct fire regimes for the major vegetation types around the Monterey Bay area from pre-‐11,000 BP to 1979.
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Keith Lombardo and his colleagues attempted to fill a void in the fire history knowledge for pre-Euro-American chaparral fire regimes by selecting an endemic tree commonly associated with chaparral at higher elevations.
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A 2013 study by Kane and others demonstrates that structural variation is significantly enhanced in the fire-frequent Sierra Nevada forests with the use of predominantly low- to moderate-severity fires.
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In a recent issue of the journal Ecological Applications, USGS scientist Dr. Matthew Brooks reports new information on temperature patterns during experimental fires, and the effects of these variable fire temperatures on annual plants in the Mojave Desert.
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It is concluded that there is a wealth of information on factors affecting fire size in southern California that make it unnecessary to base fire management in the region on questionable comparisons with Baja California.
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Two important questions about fire severity that are investigated are: to what extent can fire severity be measured by remote sensing indices, and do fire severity measurements predict ecosystem responses in vegetation recovery.
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According to a recent statewide FRID (fire return interval departure) analysis for USFS and some NPS lands, there are two distinct California fire regimes.
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Temporal and spatial patterns of burning can affect the invasion risk and prevalence of alien plants in California as explained in a book chapter in The Landscape Ecology of Fire.
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In a comparative study of fire sizes north and south of the U.S./Mexican border Minnich (1983) demonstrated differences during a nine year period in non-‐forested landscapes that included chaparral, sage scrub and annual grassland.
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In the April issue of Conservation Biology, Keeley considers the impact of six fire management practices on alien invasions: fire suppression, forest fuel reduction, prescription burning in crown fire ecosystems, fuel breaks, targeting noxious aliens, and postfire rehabilitation.
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USGS research botanist Matt Brooks and National Wildlife Refuges invasive species coordinator Michael Lusk have compiled a handbook titled Fire Management and Invasive Plants, with support from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service National Refuge System, USGS and the Joint Fire Science Program.
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This paper evaluated the current usage of the terms "fire frequency" and "fire intensity" and agrees the terminology requires clarification but advocates retention of these terms.
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Cook used the 1953 wildfire in Berkeley, CAas an opportunity to research the effects of fire on rodent populations in California grasslands and “brushlands.”
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USGS Western Ecological Research Center publication brief.
These in-depth studies of the ecological role of fire and management implications cover some of the most critical regions in the state.
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Dendrochronology and other methods were used to reconstruct the fire history from 1500 through 2006 in the vicinity of Mt. Irish.
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The California Fire Science Consortium is divided into 4 geographic regions and 1 wildland-urban interface (WUI) team. Statewide coordination of this program is based at UC Berkeley.
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This regional Fire Science Exchange is one of 15 regional fire science exchanges.
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