Relationships between annual plant productivity, nitrogen deposition and fire in California desert scrub
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Presented at the Mojave Desert Fire Science and Management Workshop. Barstow, CA 2014.
Conclusions from this presentation include statements about the prehistoric, historic, and current characteristics in the Mojave desert area. For example, high elevation and riparian vegetation types contain many species that evolved with fire, whereas lower elevation vegetation is characterized by species that evolved with very little fire.
Presenter: Matthew Brooks
Read MoreThe goals of this project were to provide a more detailed representation of the rainfall patterns in the Mojave and to compare the current precipitation regime and patterns with both historic patterns and predicted future patterns.
Presenter: Jerry Tagestad et al.
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Presented at the Mojave Desert Fire Science and Management Workshop. Barstow, CA 2014.
This presentation discusses the process of model development to map the ignition probability and fire severity.
Presenter: Emma Underwood et al.
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This presentation discusses findings from two large scale integrated projects. The overarching goals of these projects were to use models and create tools about resource issues such as non-native species, postfire vegetation, ignition likelihood and fire severity.
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This presentation was given at the Mojave Desert Fire Science and Management Workshop. Barstow, CA 2014.
Results from multiple studies on seeding in the Mojave Desert are presented in this presentation.
Read More"...Access to data allows tribal leaders to make informed decisions, be proactive about shaping the future of their communities, secure funding for programs to benefit the community, and refine the programs currently offered to tribal citizens. "
Visit the NCAI website to learn more about their "Research that Benefits Native People" curriculum.
Abstract: "This article presents results from an interview-based case study examining burning practices of the Nez Perce tribe in the Inland Northwest in both their contemporary and historical policy context. Despite the lack of a prominent fire tradition, our interviews uncovered a legacy of knowledge and cultural traditions linked to fire and a variety of contemporary fire practices on the reservation performed by land-management professionals and individual tribal members. Many of these practices, particularly those involving broadcast burning, have diminished over the years. We examine the reasons for this and the potentials for mitigating some of the practical and policy constraints to such burning. We conclude that the nontribal community still has much to learn about fire from those who have lived in fire-adapted landscapes longer than anyone else."
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Description: "Participatory Research in Conservation and Rural Livelihoods starts from the understanding that all people create knowledge and that the creation of sustainable livelihoods and of conditions that protect and sustain rural ecosystems are interrelated. Interdependent science, that is, science undertaken collaboratively by local and professional scientists, can create new knowledge to achieve conservation goals. Local experts and professional researchers demonstrate that interdependent science can produce more accurate and locally appropriate data. Conservation scientists and practitioners will both benefit from reading this book."
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Fortmann, Louise (ed). 2008. Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell.
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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Abstract: Broad discretion is granted at all levels throughout federal land management agencies regarding compliance with the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA). We explored the diversity of procedures employed in NEPA processes across four agencies, the USDA Forest Service, the USDI National Park Service and Bureau of Land Management, and the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers, through document review and interviews with chief NEPA compliance officers, interdisciplinary team leaders, team members, and decision makers within the agencies. A lack of consistency is highlighted not only between, but also within, agencies with regard to how NEPA is perceived and implemented. This report focuses on how successful NEPA processes are defined within each agency and what strategies are perceived to be the most or least beneficial to positive NEPA outcomes. It also identifies unresolved questions about NEPA processes and presents a research strategy for addressing them.
Read MoreThis General Technical Report, from the PNW Research Station of the Forest Service, summarizes the findings of in-depth interviews with 12 district rangers on project design and implementation, and the effect of NEPA on those processes. A "Recommendations" section is included with general suggestions - based on the findings from the interviews - for how to managers in the Forest Service can write more accessible NEPA documents and improve the efficiency and outcomes of the NEPA process.
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This technical report shows the hundreds of uses of oaks by indigenous people from food sources to tools. The management practices to maintain oaks are also explained with recommendations for oak restoration.
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Abstract: "As the large scale of fuel treatments needed to promote ecosystem health and reduce heavy fuel loads becomes clear in California’s mixed conifer forests, managers are beginning to focus on how to scale up prescribed fire use in order to treat a meaningful portion of the landscape. We look at the example of Western Australia’s large-scale and highly successful prescribed burning program by their Department of Environment and Conservation as a model for emulation by land management agencies in California. Focusing on: 1) novel management practices, 2) inter-agency collaboration, 3) regulatory collaboration and policy, 4) research integration, 5) cultural acceptance, and 6) political support of prescribed fire, we make recommendations for a new approach to the management and regulation of fire use in California’s mixed conifer forests."
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CFSC blog post about the report>
Read MoreThe California Fire Science Consortium coordinated the Panel Review of the California Board of Forestry and Fire Protection's Draft Vegetation Treatment Plan Environmental Impact Report (VTPEIR). The report from this review is available here.
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From PSW website: "An efficient raster fire-spread model named HFire is introduced. HFire can simulate single-fire events or long-term fire regimes, using the same fire-spread algorithm. This paper describes the HFire algorithm, benchmarks the model using a standard set of tests developed for FARSITE, and compares historical and predicted fire spread perimeters for three southern California fires. HFire is available for download at http://firecenter.berkeley.edu/hfire/."
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Presentation from the June 2013 Chaparral Restoration Workshop in Arcadia, CA
This presentation shows detailed examples of the types of activities done in Spain and Mediterranean following a fire to restore the desired ecological conditions and values. Factors that go into the restoration decision process and desired outcomes are also discussed.
Presenter: V. Ramón Vallejo, University of Barcelona & CEAM-Valencia.
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Abstract: The inability to distinguish between human-caused and lightning ignitions in fire-history studies has led to three major problems: 1) a basic assumption that all pre–Euro-American settlement fire regimes are ‘‘natural’’ unless findings are aberrant, i.e., outside the range of ‘‘natural’’ lightning fire regimes; 2) a lack of studies that explicitly or quantitatively determine ignition sources; and 3) use of regional anthropological overviews rather than site-specific ethnographic and archaeological data. A cross-disciplinary dendrochronological fire history and archaeological study conducted in Yosemite Valley, Yosemite National Park, California, shows that fire return intervals in areas with no historical lightning ignitions and a large Native American population were similar to those in locations with a high number of lightning ignitions. Native American fire regimes in Yosemite Valley consisted of spatially small, low-intensity surface fires in all areas regardless of differences in distance from a village site, identified land uses, or village size. Fire patterns appear to be independent of climatic fluctuations and dependent on human disturbance patterns. Archaeological and ethnographic data show no major difference between the population size, land-use patterns, or material culture of the Ahwah’-nee, the prehistoric occupants of Yosemite Valley, and other native groups in the Sierra Nevada or Great Basin. The cultural data and initial findings from this study suggest that lightning and Native American influences on fire regimes cannot be differentiated based only on fire return intervals and fire regimes;additional cross-disciplinary studies are needed to gain better understanding of human–fire interactions.
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Abstract (excerpt): [Native American] “protoagricultural” techniques, based upon traditional knowledge of natural processes gained over the millennia, were applied to increase the quantity and improve select qualities of focal plant species. Fire was the most important management tool... There is currently an ecological “vacuum,” or disequilibrium, in the Sierra resulting from the departure of Native American [land management] influences. The recent decline in biotic diversity, species extirpation and endangerment, human encroachment into fire-type plant communities (e.g., chaparral), and greatly increased risk of catastrophic fires are but symptoms of this disequilibrium. It is recommended, there- fore, that land-managing agencies and land-use planners incorporate Native American traditional knowledge into future policies and programs for ecosystem management in the Sierra Nevada. This traditional knowledge, which permitted the adaptive success of large human populations and the maintenance of Sierran environments for more than a hundred centuries, must not be dismissed.
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Excerpt: “In a landmark treatise on the ecology of Indian burning practices in California, Henry Lewis suggested an investigative approach involving “the collection and examination of the few and desultory ethnographic and historic statements about Indian burning to fit these into the findings and recommendations of contemporary ecological research.”
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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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