The authors surveyed understory vegetation across a gradient of increasing canopy loss, ranging from unmanaged forest to fuel treatments, fuel treatments followed by low-moderate severity wildfire, and high-severity wildfire only.
Read MoreAbstract: The objective of this project is to synthesize existing (extreme fire behavior) EFB knowledge in a way that connects the weather, fuel, and topographic factors that contribute to development of EFB. This synthesis will focus on the state of the science, but will also consider how that science is currently presented to the fire management community, including incident commanders, fire behavior analysts, incident meteorologists, National Weather Service office forecasters, and firefighters. It will seek to clearly delineate the known, the unknown, and areas of research with the greatest potential impact on firefighter protection.
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This study investigated the effect of burn season on direct and indirect tree mortality in mechanically thinned ponderosa and Jeffrey pine stands in California’s Tahoe National Forest.
Read MoreCompared to historic (1911) stands, current southern Sierra Nevada forests have a greater density of small to medium trees, lower density of large trees (>36 inches dbh), and greater density of white fir in mixed conifer.
Read MoreA 2015 study indicates that the reintroduction of fire in frequent fire forests of the Sierra Nevada creates a heterogeneous forest landscape and promotes diverse small mammal assemblages.
Read MoreThis study examined how housing location and arrangement affects the likelihood that a structure will be lost when a wildfire occurs.
Read MoreThis article argues that fire is more akin to trophic processes such as herbivory, and that there has been a reluctance by ecologists to incorporate the process of fire into general theories of community development and assembly.
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This journal article provides a decision framework that integrates fire regime components, plant growth form, and survival attributes to predict how plants will respond to fires and how fires can be prescribed to enhance the likelihood of obtaining desired plant responses.
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This study found that the predictive capability of the commonly used Burning Index was quite limited and proposed an index with improved predictive ability for Los Angeles County, California.
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In the Annals of Forest Science, USGS ecologist Jon Keeley has reviewed the evolution of pine life history strategies as shaped by wildfires.
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There is evidence of 20 large fires (> 20,000 ha) in a 560 year fossil fire record for the Santa Barabara area of central California.
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From 2002 to 2011, Sinead and Mark Borchert live-trapped small mammals in two grids across the 65‐m zone on either side of the perimeter of the 2002, 8,100‐ha Wolf Fire in Los Padres National Forest.
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Loudermilk et al. investigated the influence of climate change and wildfire activity on carbon dynamics within the Lake Tahoe Basin.
Read MoreChaparral species can be sorted into two life history types: those with dormant seed banks that germinate after fire and those with very short-‐lived seeds and these species survive fire by resprouting.
Read MoreDrought following fire can cause increased mortality in some resprouting chaparral shrub species and cause shifts in relative abundance compared to prefire levels.
Read MoreTo better understand vegetation succession in the Los Angeles, California basin, modern aerial photos (1980) were measured and compared to older aerial photos (1928 & 1936), spanning roughly 50 years of vegetation change. Through this comparison, the authors found that shrublands and grasslands formed a dynamic mosaic.
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These researchers did extensive studies of postfire recovery following the 2002 McNally Fire in Sequoia National Forest and compared ancient stands of chaparral with younger stands.
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This study showed that fire-adapted shrublands are vulnerable to changes in fire regime, leading to loss of native diversity and setting the community on a trajectory towards type conversion from a woody to an herbaceous system.
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Read MoreResearchers used 29 years of historical fire mapping to quantify the relationship between annual wildfire area and previous fire area in seven California counties to address the question of prescribed fire effectiveness in these counties.
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A Bayesian Network model was used to evaluate the relative importance of fuel and fuel treatments compared to weather and variables of the built and natural environment on wildfire risk at the wildland-urban interface (WUI) in San Diego County.
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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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