This study leveraged data collected from 20-year-old forest monitoring plots within fuel treatment units that captured a range of wildfire occurrence (i.e., not burned, burned once, or burned twice) following application of initial thinning treatments and prescribed fire.
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Read MoreA new paper by USGS and partners investigated why some California wildfires are destructive and others are not.
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Read MoreThis study presents an analysis of burn trends for the Sierra Nevada and Southern Cascades from 1984 to 2020.
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Read MoreThis synthesis summarizes the relevance of targeted grazing for fuel reduction and ecosystem resilience and discusses some of its primary applications and limitations.
Read MoreIn a new study, USGS scientists and partners have found extensive drought-caused dieback in Southern California shrublands that subsequently burned in large wildfires.
Read MoreThis paper summarizes important outcomes of the 2020 fire year in California and discusses what we can learn from them.
Read MoreThis paper argues that the expansion of prescribed fire will require new public policies that both protect burn practitioners from liability and compensate for losses from potential fire escapes.
Read MoreIn dry frequent-fire forests of the western US, forest restoration goals are often focused on promoting resilience to disturbances. This brief highlights ways to manage dry western forests for improved resilience.
Read MoreWildfires in California burn across a broad diversity of land cover types with different implications for each unique ecosystem. This paper shows that most of California’s recent wildfires burn outside of forests and forest management is just one piece of a very large, very nuanced problem.
Read MoreWith narrowing and potentially non-existent opportunities during other times of year, winter may currently be the most realistic and advantageous time to conduct prescribed burns. This study evaluated the effectiveness and feasibility of winter burning to demonstrate its potential utility in mixed conifer forests.
Read MoreThis study measured wildland fuels (shrubs, downed logs, and fine woody debris) eleven years after high-severity fire converted a Sierra mixed-conifer forest to shrub-dominant vegetation. The findings of this study suggest that site preparation and vegetation control is an effective tool to reduce fuel loads and continuity of live and downed woody fuels in early seral environments created by high-severity fire.
Read MoreLocal non-governmental organizations (NGOs) play important roles in community wildfire relief and recovery. This paper identifies challenges and opportunities for local NGOs involved in wildfire recovery drawing on three case studies from recent wildfires in Northern California.
Read MoreThis paper suggests pyrosilviculture, a combination of mechanical treatments and prescribed fire and/or managed wildfire, can be used strategically to modify future wildfires at larger spatial scales.
Read MoreIn this study, the authors integrated archival federal (FACTS) and state (CAL FIRE) forest activity databases dating from 1984 to 2019, analyzed current and historic management trends, and evaluated the archival record’s spatial accuracy against remotely sensed data. California’s progress toward the 1-million-acres of annually treated land is currently at 30%.
Read MoreIn this study, pyrosilviculture is presented as a conceptual management framework that merges prescribed fire and silvicultural systems for promoting resilient and sustainably managed forests.
Read MoreA new paper published in September in the journal Fire sheds light into the inherent socio-political complexities surrounding the managed fire decision making process. In the paper, the authors conduct an extensive review of the historical literature that pertains to managed fire decision making, described the range of factors managers consider in their decision, and present a conceptual framework of how decision factors fit together.
Read MoreTo demonstrate where resources might be better allocated across the state, these authors examined the distribution of area burned and structures lost across five different California vegetation types and how the distribution of fire has changed in these landscapes through time.
Read MoreThis brief compares the restoration treatments of outplanting and two abiotic treatments on disturbed sites in the Sonoran Desert of southeastern California. Overall results suggest that multiple treatment types, including abiotic treatments, can be implemented as a bet-hedging approach to achieve restoration benefits even if some treatments may fail.
Read MoreThe objective of this study was to assess feasibility of developing regression equations using a fast, non-destructive measure (cover) to estimate aboveground biomass for red brome, a widespread non-native annual grass in the Mojave Desert.
Read MoreIn this important concept paper, Pausas and Keeley (2021) outline the mechanistic flow of complex drivers of wildfire for fire prone ecosystems. In brief, with ignitions, fuel continuity, and drought saturation points simultaneously lowered by the right weather, wildfire will be triggered.
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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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