Unlike the well-studied, large conifer forests of the northern Sierra Nevada, southern California conifer forests are less-studied and represent only about 8% of the landscape. But much like the forests to the north, these valuable ecosystems are at risk of type-converting to other vegetation types.
Read MoreA 2019 study by Meyer and others showed that the reestablishment of natural fire regimes can be highly effective at restoring the structure and understory diversity of red fir forests but have little effect on the health of red fir under increasing moisture stress associated with drought and warming climate.
Read MoreMany of California’s research natural areas exhibit high to moderate departure from their natural fire regime. Without restoration or maintenance of the natural fire regime, the ecological integrity of some natural areas could be lost.
Read MoreLocating forest treatments in the right places can make them as or more effective than treating everywhere, shows new research out by Krofcheck et al. 2018. The authors found that restoring less acres strategically can have the same impacts as treating more area indiscriminately in terms of reducing high severity wildfire risk and carbon instability.
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Read MoreTo test the Interval Squeeze Model concept on real, fire sensitive woody species, these authors created a process-based model of a plant population that could be used for any serotinous, fire-killed species.
Read MoreThis brief summarizes qualitative interviews to examine landowner responses to a reforestation program following a devastating wildfire in the central Sierra Nevada.
Read MoreThe impacts of mechanical mastication fuel treatments on chaparral vegetation are discussed in this brief.
Read MoreThe authors of the paper explore the effectiveness of using wildfires as a tool to restore historical forest structures.
Read MoreStrategically placed landscape area fuel treatments (SPLATs) in the Sierra Nevada were put to the test in this study when the American Fire burned through previously treated areas. Both fire effects and initial post-fire conifer regeneration were investigated.
Read MoreDo you have any idea just how valuable chaparral is? Most of us don't realize that these often overlooked lands provide essential benefits worth billions of dollars. The four southernmost forests in California actually contain more chaparral shrubland than forest. This animation describes the benefits and values of these often under-appreciated lands.
View on youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w-8KFNr1c9o
Read MoreThis paper builds our understand of how the spatial distribution of different ignition sources have varied over time and space.
Read MoreNational guidance is provided for new and updated invasive plant management plans that meet federal standards
Read MoreBy mastering the art of prescription burning over thousands of years, native California tribes sustainably maximized chaparral ecosystem services like food, medicine, and building materials.
Read MoreThe authors show a direct connection between a diverse set of drivers and type-converted chaparral in Southern California. Example drivers include high frequency fire, land-use disturbance, moisture availability, and site flatness.
Read MoreDiscussions of successes, struggles, and failures with partner-specific tools are vital to the successful implementation of “translational ecology” a formal term for biological conservation partnerships.
Read MoreThe rugged, chaparral dominated Angeles National Forest (ANF, California) is a beautiful and popular recreation destination. However, it is being damaged by a combination of overwhelming anthropogenic stressors, including climate change-induced mega-droughts, unnaturally shortened fire intervals, very poor air quality (e.g., high levels of nitrogen deposition), and the invasion of non-native groundcover plants.
Read MoreThe ecosystems within the South Coast bioregion have accumulated very different sets of modern fire management problems that are vegetation, weather, and location specific.
Read MoreRecent work by researchers from U.C. Berkeley and the U.S. Forest Service has produced a spatially-explicit predictive model that can be used to forecast where regeneration of (non-serotinous) conifers is most likely to occur after wildfire. This predictive model combines seed availability with climatic, topographic, and burn severity data to forecast the spatial patterns of post-fire conifer regeneration
Read MoreThis brief discusses and compares the two methods used to estimate historic tree densities of the Sierra Nevada. The study suggests that density estimates from distance-based estimators support the historical density estimates derived from timber inventories and reconstructions.
Read MoreThis brief is based on a synthesis that covers recent research documenting effects of introducing fire in fire suppressed forests, provides necessary background information to understand the breadth of the problem, provides realistic management solutions to reduce impacts and defines monitoring techniques to identify treatment effects.
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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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