What affects fire behavior more, climate or fuels? Research Brief

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What affects fire behavior more, climate or fuels? Research Brief

The authors examined the relationship between fuels and fire behavior by examining how fire suppression has affected fire severity in different forest ecosystems in California. The authors tested the hypothesis that fire behavior is limited by fuel availability in some California forests where climatic conditions during the fire season are nearly always conducive to burning and the primary limiting factor for fire ignition and spread is the presence of sufficient fuel.

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Proximate Causes of Abrupt Fire-Regime Changes: Research Brief

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Proximate Causes of Abrupt Fire-Regime Changes: Research Brief

In many past and present ecosystems, changes in animal, plant, and human communities have been more influential in rapid local fire regime disruption than climate. The good news is that, unlike climate change, these direct, proximate community causes can be practically addressed by fire and resource managers.

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Understanding the Complex Nature of Resprouting: Research Brief

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Understanding the Complex Nature of Resprouting: Research Brief

Resprouting plants are common throughout the world and resprouting is a familiar response to any kind of disturbance that kills living tissue. Resprouting is a seemingly simple trait that has complex underlying morphological and anatomical origins among diverse evolutionary lineages. 

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Evolution of Resprouting and Seeding by Fire: Research Brief

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Evolution of Resprouting and Seeding by Fire: Research Brief

Some shrub species are obligate resprouters, some are obligate seeders, and others are facultative seeders, combining both resprouting and postfire seeding to various degrees. How could this diversity in fire response have evolved and how does it coexist?

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Ecosystems of California: Book

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Ecosystems of California: Book

This long-anticipated reference and sourcebook for California’s remarkable ecological abundance provides an integrated assessment of each major ecosystem type—its distribution, structure, function, and management. A comprehensive synthesis of our knowledge about this biologically diverse state, Ecosystems of California covers the state from oceans to mountaintops using multiple lenses: past and present, flora and fauna, aquatic and terrestrial, natural and managed.

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Prescribed burning and the drought: go or no go? Research Brief

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Prescribed burning and the drought: go or no go? Research Brief

Research 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.

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Principles of Effective Federal Fire Management Plans: Research Brief

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Principles of Effective Federal Fire Management Plans: Research Brief

The six features of effective federal fire management plans are: consistent and compatible, 
collaborative, clear and comprehensive, spatially and temporally scalable, informed by the best
available science, flexible and adaptive. Additional tools and strategies are discussed.

Meyer, M. D., Roberts, S. L., Wills, R., Brooks, M., & Winford, E. M.. 2015. Principles of effective USA federal fire management plans. Fire Ecology 11(2): 59–83. doi: 10.4996/fireecology.1102059.

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Response of California Spotted Owls to Fire and Salvage Logging in Southern California: Research Brief

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Response of California Spotted Owls to Fire and Salvage Logging in Southern California: Research Brief

In this study, the average core area of the owls’ pre-fire forest habitat was 106 ha with a greater proportion of hardwoods compared to an average core area of 180 ha in the Sierra in which conifers dominate. 

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A High Severity Fire in a Southern California Forest does not Adversely Affect Carnivore Species. Research Brief

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A High Severity Fire in a Southern California Forest does not Adversely Affect Carnivore Species. Research Brief

This ambitious four-year study assessed fire effects on the diversity of ten carnivore species and frequency of the three most common carnivore species after a 5670- ha fire in 2007.

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5-Years of Small Mammal Response to Fire Severity in a Southern California Mixed Conifer Forest: Research Brief

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5-Years of Small Mammal Response to Fire Severity in a Southern California Mixed Conifer Forest: Research Brief

In this 5-year study, the post-fire populations and microhabitat preferences of four small mammal species were compared. The study analyzed preferences in unburned, moderate and high-severity fire in mixed conifer forest.

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The “Interval Squeeze”- Fire and Climate Change Combine to Accelerate Woody Plant Loss in Dry Climates: Research Brief

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The “Interval Squeeze”- Fire and Climate Change Combine to Accelerate Woody Plant Loss in Dry Climates: Research Brief

Hotter, drier climates resulting from climate change will reduce the ability of woody plants to recover after fire. When combined with shorter fire return intervals, the resulting “interval squeeze” increases the risk for individual species extirpation.  

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Fire and fuel treatment effects on understory plant diversity in California mixed-conifer forests: Research Brief

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Fire and fuel treatment effects on understory plant diversity in California mixed-conifer forests: Research Brief

The 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.

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Listening and Learning from Traditional Knowledge and Western Science: A Dialogue on Contemporary Challenges of Forest Health and Wildfire: Journal Article

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Journal of Forestry Abstract: "Native Americans relied on fire to maintain a cultural landscape that sustained their lifeways for thousands of years. Within the past 100 years, however, policies of fire exclusion have disrupted ecological processes, elevating risk of wildfire, insects, and disease, affecting the health and availability of resources on which the tribes depend..."
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Longer-term post fire vegetation dynamics and predicted invasive species habitat suitability: Presentation PDF

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Presented at the Mojave Desert Fire Science and Management Workshop. Barstow, CA 2014.
This presentation explains the use and implication of utilizing modeling tools to predict invasive species distribution after a fire. 
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