This study uses tree cores gathered at three 4-hectare plots to make inferences about temporal aspects of tree recruitment in pine-dominated ecosystems of the California Sierra Nevada and the Sierra San Petro Martir in northwestern Mexico.
Read MoreIn this paper, the authors quantify change in the extent of mature conifer forests in the southern Sierra Nevada of California during 2011-2020, a decade and ecoregion characterized by compounding severe wildfires and drought follow prolonged fire exclusion.
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Read MoreAbella, S.R., K.H. Berry, and S. Ferrazzano. 2023. Techniques for restoring damaged Mojave and western Sonoran habitats, including those for threatened desert tortoises and Joshua trees. Desert Plants 38:4-52.
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This study uses bio-acoustical monitoring to characterize the habitat of mountain quail in the California Sierra Nevada. Findings include that high severity wildfires may promote vegetation structures that are beneficial for mountain quail.
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Read MoreThis 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.
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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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