Northern California
Geographic area and background
The Northern California Region includes the North Coast Ranges, Klamath Mountains, southern Cascade Range, Modoc Plateau, and the Sacramento Valley and foothills. This region has a Mediterranean climate with cool, wet winters and hot, dry summers that are very conducive to fire. The area contains notably complex vegetation and terrain, and it has a history of national policy-defining fires (e.g., Siege of 1987, Megram 1999, Biscuit 2002, Northern California Lightning Siege 2008, and others). The region also features diverse land management and ownership patterns, including national forests and grasslands, national parks, national recreation areas, and national monuments, national and state wildlife refuges, tribal lands, state parks, managed rangelands, and millions of acres managed by the forest industry and private non-industrial forestland owners.
Need to reach someone?
Northern California Coordinator
Staff Research Associate II
UC Cooperative Extension
hholbrook@ucanr.edu
Northern California Coordinator
Area Fire Advisor, University of California Cooperative Extension
Director, Northern California Prescribed Fire Council
5630 South Broadway
Eureka, CA 95503
(707) 445-7351 (office)
(707) 272-0637 (cell)
lquinndavidson@ucanr.edu
Northern California Region Lead
Forest Advisor
UC Cooperative Extension
Eureka, CA
yvala@ucanr.edu
(707) 445-7351
Northern California Region Lead
Research Ecologist
USFS Pacific Southwest Research Station
Redding, CA
eric.e.knapp@usda.gov
Office: (530) 226-2555
Fax: (530) 226-5091
Upcoming Events Related to Northern California
If blank, there are currently no upcoming events for this region.
Northern California Research Briefs & Synthesis
This study investigates Bishop pine's unique fire ecology, seed bank dynamics, and the impacts pine pitch canker infection has on stands.
This 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.
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.
A 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.
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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A century of fire exclusion in the western United States has altered oak woodland landscapes, resulting in severe compositional and structural changes that influence species diversity and distribution, fuel loading, and fire behavior and effects.
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This review paper describes geographical variation of mixed severity fire regimes in Pacific temperate forests and summarizes known information about fire effects and ecology in relation to the vegetation types characterized by such regimes.
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The National Fire and Fire Surrogates (FFS) study was designed to evaluate differences among alternative fuels reduction treatments in seasonally dry forests throughout the country, and to test the assumption that mechanical treatments might be used to accomplish the same stand structure and ecological goals as prescribed fire.
Climate change in California is likely to lead to a decline in alpine/subalpine and conifer forest, woodland, and shrubland extent while promoting grassland dominance.
Stand-replacing patch size was highly variable in a high elevation mixed conifer forest in the Sierra Nevada with a range of variation dominated by many small patches < 10 acres (4 ha) and few large patches >148 acres (60 ha).
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The authors conducted prescribed burns in two masticated areas in northern California to assess fire effects in treated stands, compare fire behavior and effects with outputs from commonly used models, and evaluate the ability of mastication to increase stand resilience under a range of hypothetical wildfire scenarios.
In this paper, Agee and Skinner reviewed related literature, simulated fire behavior in different treatment types, and considered five real-‐world examples of fuels treatments and wildfire. Using these methods, they distilled a set of basic principles underlying effective treatments that reduce fuels and limit wildfire severity and extent.
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This study assessed the effects of both prescribed burning and stand structure management through thinning on bark beetle activity and associated levels of tree mortality.
This brief summarizes fire ecology and management issues in California mixed-conifer forests for an audience without a background in fire, including the general public and media.
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Extreme fire intervals are one obvious concern for managers of fire dependent species such as the serotinous knobcone pine (Pinus attenuata).
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Past Events and Webinars
This webinar will focus on satellite-based and field-based fire severity metrics: which ones work best, where, and when?
This webinar mini-series (Nov 10 & 12, 2020 at 1PM PST) will introduce a new collaborative project to develop landscape-scale fire management tools for the NCRP and Western Klamath Mountains planning areas, and solicit local input on key questions and dynamics to consider as the project is developed.
Register by May 1st to enjoy updates and conversation with fire scientists and managers from across the North State!
Join us for the 2018 meeting of the Northern California Prescribed Fire Council! This year's meeting will include a field tour, evening social, and full-day meeting in beautiful Mt. Shasta, CA. We hope you can join us!
Join the Northern California Prescribed Fire Council for their spring meeting, coming up March 7-8 in Petaluma! There's a great line-up of speakers, networking time, and a field day.
Click HERE to register!
Event Announcement
This field tour will visit nearby fuel breaks and discuss good and bad examples, fuel break maintenance, funding and cost-share programs for fuels reduction, methods for fuel break construction and maintenance, and the current status of area fuel breaks.
Event Announcement
We are happy to announce our Fall 2015 Nor Cal TREX, which will take place October 20-November 1 throughout northern California. Please see the announcement for information, and visit the application website for more details and to apply: www.trexregistration.weebly.com
Event Announcement
Join us at the UC Hopland Research & Extension Center. Participants will learn about fuel hazard reduction treatments, tour a 10-year old fire/fire-surrogate study, and help build a decision support tool for Chaparral.
Event Annoucenment
Fire Effects in the Lodge Fire:
On May 7, 2015 visit UC’s Angelo Reserve near Branscomb, CA (Mendocino County), which burned in the 2014 Lodge Fire.
Event Announcement
Join us on April 22 near Weaverville, CA. We will visit sites near Oregon Mountain and near Trinity Lake, and talk about wildfire, prescribed fire, research, and management.
Other Resources
This bibliography of pivotal fire science papers is specific to Northern California. It is organized by ecosystem type, making it easy for you to look up some of the critical works that apply to your management area. Release date: 2011.
This guide provides advice to homeowners on fire-safe building materials and home design.
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A guide detailing the fire hazards associated with different landscape mulch types and landscaping near homes.
Northern California Partners & Tools
The Northern California Prescribed Fire Council is a venue for practitioners, state and federal agencies, academic institutions, tribes, coalitions, and interested individuals to work collaboratively to promote, protect, conserve, and expand the responsible use of prescribed fire in Northern California’s fire-adapted landscapes.
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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