Lightning and Human Caused Wildfires in California: Research Brief
/This paper analyzed patterns of lightning and human caused fires for a 10 year period in California.
View Research Brief PDF >
Large California Fires Cause Shift in Reptile and Amphibian Assemblages: USGS Research Brief
/In 2003, Southern California experienced several large fires that burned thousands of hectares of wildlife habitats and conserved lands. A USGS study published in the Journal of Herpetology reports that after the fires, burned chaparral and coastal sage scrub (CSS) plots lost herpetological diversity and displayed a significant shift in overall community structure.
View USGS Research Brief PDF >
VTM plots and historical vegetation change: USGS Research Brief
/A study demonstrates some critically important flaws in some of the published studies and suggests approaches for increasing the credibility of studies using historical VTM data.
View USGS Research Brief PDF >
Is prescribed fire an ecological surrogate for wildfire in riparian and stream ecosystems? Reseasrch brief
/A study that offers insight into the impacts of prescribed and wildfire on stream and riparian systems.
View Research Brief PDF >
Invasive Plants and Fire in the Deserts of North America: USGS Research Brief
/In a recent publication by USGS scientists, Drs. Matthew L. Brooks and David A. Pyke discussed these interrelationships, and concluded that the management of fire and invasive plants must be closely integrated for each to be managed effectively.
View USGS Research Brief PDF >
View USGS Research Brief PDF >
Interactions among wildland fires in a long-established Sierra Nevada natural fire area: Research Brief
/ 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.
View Research Brief PDF >
Influence of conifer encroachment & fire on CA black oak: Research Brief
/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.
View Research Brief PDF >
Impact of Short Interval Fires in Shrublands: Research Brief
/Fire in chaparral is a natural process, but only when it occurs within the range of conditions represented by its fire regime.
View Research Brief PDF >
Immaturity Risk from Frequent Fire in Knobcone Pine: Research Brief
/Here, Jon Keeley and his colleagues document an example of immaturity risk for population decline in knobcone pine (Pinus attenuate), a rare, serotinous, obligate-seeding pine species.
View Research Brief PDF >
Hydrologic Changes After 40 Years of Type Conversion: Research Brief
/Four decades after being type converted to a non native grassland, the soil and hydrology of the USFS San Dimas Experimental Forest in southern California was compared to the adjacent, natural chaparral.
View Research Brief PDF >
Human Influence on California Fire Regimes: USGS Research Brief
/Researchers studied the human influence on fire regimes at the WUI using California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection (CDF) data from a majority of counties in the state, coupled with associated housing and other human infrastructure data.
View USGS Research Brief PDF >
How Pinyon Thinning Treatments Affect Wildfire Fuel Loads: USGS Research Brief
/At two sites in Mono County, California, two thinning treatments were compared: machine mastication versus cut/pile/burn by hand crews using chain saws.
View USGS Research Brief PDF >
How Much Defensible Space is Needed to Reduce Home Losses in Chaparral? Research Brief
/Syphard, Brennan and Keeley asked how the size of the defensible space zone affected fire outcomes using a dataset of 687,869 homes with their property boundaries.
View Research Brief PDF >
How can we span the boundaries between wildland fire science and management in the United States? Research Brief
/The Fire Science Exchange Network was initiated by the Joint Fire Science Program. Guidelines to be effective "boundary organizations" are discussed.
View Research Brief PDF >
How are forests structured under an active-fire regime? Research Brief
/The authors sought to determine how mixed conifer forests under an active fire regime differ from forests under fire suppression.
View Research Brief PDF >
Hot fire, cool soils in a Mediterranean shrubland: Research Brief
/Stoof et al. discusses a prescribed fire experiment in Portugal on soil characteristics.
View Research Brief PDF >
Historical fire regimes: spatial patterns and controls: Research Brief
/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.
View Research Brief PDF >
High-severity wildfire effects on carbon stocks and emissions in fuels treated and untreated forest: Research Brief
/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.
View Research Brief PDF >
Grazing Keeps the Chaparral Out: Research Brief
/Here, Walter Johnson observes the effects of 20 years of grazing and browsing by cattle and deer on chaparral re-‐growth in the Sierra Nevada foothills
View Research Brief PDF >
Grassland-Shrubland-Woodland Mosaic Shifts: Research Brief
/Callaway and Davis were able "to quantify dynamic chaparral in vegetation patterns and the relative importance of fire, livestock grazing, topography, and substrate in grassland, coastal sage scrub, chaparral, and oak woodland distribution in central coastal California.”
View Research Brief PDF >
