JFSP Fire Science Exchange Network
Researchers from Michigan State University and the USFS Fire Behavior Assessment Team used 15 years of immediate pre- and post-fire fuel and wildfire behavior data to identify the role of fire advancement mode and pre-fire environmental drivers (e.g., topography, fire weather, and fuel loadings) on fuel consumption and fire effects in California mixed-conifer forests.
Read MoreThis study finds that the usefulness of several fire severity metrics (Composite Burn Index, RdNBR) depends on whether the land had burned recently and how severely.
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.
View Full Article (open access) >
Read MoreIn California’s dry mixed conifer forests, increasingly large high severity wildfires threaten to convert significant areas of forested land into shrub dominated landscapes in the absence of active reforestation, including control of competing vegetation. Previous studies have found that salvage logging and other methods used to prepare a site for reforestation may reduce shrub cover after wildfire. This study investigated the effect of masticated fuel depth on shrub growth where salvage logging and mastication followed high severity wildfire.
View Full Article (open access) >
Read MoreIn Southern California, native bunchgrass communities dominated by Stipa pulchra are widely distributed in the state but often share dominance with non-native annual grasses. Restoration of these grasslands is focused on altering the balance of native to non-native grasses to favor the native perennial grasses. This study investigated the impact of burning on vegetation recovery.
View Full Article (open access) >
Read MoreSupported by the Clark County (Nevada) Desert Conservation Program and the California Fire Science Consortium, we completed a status of knowledge synthesis of restoration practices aimed at enhancing recovery of damaged habitats in the Mojave and western Sonoran Desert, some of the driest locations in North America.
View Full Article (open access) >
Read MoreIt is not well understood whether desert plantings can facilitate recruitment of other natives (or mainly just non-natives), or whether facilitation changes through time as a restoration site matures. To address these uncertainties, we partnered with the National Park Service to study plant community change below planted perennials and in interspaces (areas between perennials) during 12 years (2009-2020) in Joshua Tree National Park, California, in the southern Mojave Desert.
View Full Article (open access) >
Read MoreThis 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.
View Full Article (open access) >
Read MoreThis 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.
View Full Article (open access) >
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.
View Full Article (open access) >
Read MoreA new paper by USGS and partners investigated why some California wildfires are destructive and others are not.
View Full Article (open access) >
Read MoreThis study presents an analysis of burn trends for the Sierra Nevada and Southern Cascades from 1984 to 2020.
View Full Article (open access) >
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 More
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.
View the about page to learn more >
This regional Fire Science Exchange is one of 15 regional fire science exchanges sponsored by Joint Fire Science Program (JFSP).
Link to another exchange:
