JFSP Fire Science Exchange Network
This study investigates Bishop pine's unique fire ecology, seed bank dynamics, and the impacts pine pitch canker infection has on stands.
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Read MoreThis report compiles research on fuel conditions, fire history, and fire effects data from contemporary wildfires to provide context for the future management of old growth coast redwood stands and restoration of old growth attributes in second growth forests. The report also investigates fire hazards present in redwood forests and their fire management implications.
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Read MoreResearch Brief/Management Consideration. One topic that is generating a great deal of interest among fire management professionals as California enters the fall prescribed fire season is whether we should be burning during this fourth year of drought. This brief discusses what managers should consider before doing a prescribed burn.
Read MoreThe 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 MoreA study published in Ecology Letters suggests that the effects of drought and fire work in combination, such that forests experiencing drought will see more dead trees in the aftermath of wildfires.
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The authors used spatial analyses to describe major wildfire patterns across a 5.8 million acre area of northwestern California.
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Authors of this paper present quantitative information on the differences in stand structure, fuel loading, and fire behavior in current and reconstructed riparian and upland areas in the Sierra Nevada.
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The objective of this study was to investigate the influence of thinning treatments on fuel moisture and determine whether or not moisture patterns differ by treatment in mixed conifer stands in northern California.
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In a 2011 paper, researchers examined the short-term consequences of mechanical thinning for forest animal abundance and diversity by summarizing the results of 33 studies from throughout the continent.
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Three complementary studies reviewed here examine how forest structure and fire regimes have varied spatially and temporally in the Lake Tahoe Basin, CA and NV.
Read More A 2009 study by Collins et al. suggests that freely burning fires in upper elevation mixed-‐conifer forests of the Sierra Nevada may effectively regulate fire-‐induced effects across an entire landscape.
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Tree and shrub encroachment is common in areas where fire has been excluded, and has become a focal point of many oak management and restoration programs.
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This paper offers a reconstruction of historic fire regimes and forest age structures in a mixed-‐ conifer forest in the Klamath Mountains of northern California, demonstrating the historic importance of temporal and spatial controls on fire in the area, and providing critical context for current restoration and management activities.
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North and Hurteau (2011) investigated the forest carbon tradeoffs of wildfire in treated and untreated mixed-‐conifer forests, as well as the carbon cost of implementing fuels reduction treatments.
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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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Mastication is an increasingly popular fuels treatment, particularly in densely populated or otherwise complex areas where prescribed fire would be difficult or impossible to implement.
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Models of fisher habitat selection and metapopulation dynamics in the southern Sierra Nevada suggest the negative effects of fuel treatments on fisher habitat suitability and population size are generally smaller than the long-‐term positive effects of fuel treatments that reduce wildfire risk and severity.
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A wildfire at Blacks Mountain Experimental Forest (BMEF) in northern California provided a rare opportunity to compare fire behavior and effects in treated and untreated ponderosa pine forests.
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Sudden oak death (SOD), a forest disease caused by the pathogen Phytophthora ramorum, is a good example of a recently introduced disease with unknown implications for forest health and future disturbances. In the dry tanoak forests of northern California, the potential relationships between SOD and fire are of particular concern.
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An increase in the frequency and spatial extent of stand-replacing fires in western North America has prompted concern for California spotted owls and other sensitive species associated with late-successional forests.
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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 sponsored by Joint Fire Science Program (JFSP).
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