2025 California Fire Science Seminar Series
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Beginning February 4, 2025 at 10 am, join us for weekly virtual presentations and discussions on emerging fire science topics from a diverse range of topics and speakers.
The California Fire Science Seminar Series is organized and supported by the Berkeley Fire Research Group, College of Engineering, University of California, Berkeley; the University of California, Merced and the California Fire Science Consortium. The planning committee includes Michael Gollner (UC Berkeley), Crystal Kolden (UC Merced), Jeanette Cobain (UC Merced), Scott Stephens (UC Berkeley), Autym Shafer (UC Berkeley), and Katanja Waldner (UC Berkeley).
A special thank you to the student committee who assisted with planning this series: Melissa Jaffe, Christina Richardson, Serenity Enriquez, Siva Viknesh, Nick Kalogeropoulos, Hanghui Chen, Guan Wang, Maria João Sousa, Halle Misal, Emma Kraus, Yeshvant Matey, Maya Elson, Nic Dutch, Louis Cimmino, Ajinkya Desai, Henri Brillon, Nicolò Perello, and Veronica Powell.
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Lecture
Fire exclusion was first implemented across large areas of California and other areas of western North America in the late 19th or early 20th centuries but few studies have investigated how forests in the early decades after this decision were impacted. Jeffrey pine-mixed conifer forests of northern Baja California, Mexico, offer an area where this can be examined since fire suppression did not begin until the early…
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Lecture
Enactment of the Clean Air Act (CAA), Endangered Species Act (ESA), and National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), three of the primary federal environmental laws, all coincided with the height of fire suppression and exclusion in the United States.
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Webinar
This presentation will explore evolving approaches to fire in the Klamath Mountains, focusing on shifting perspectives and practices. Through discussion, the speaker will examine current challenges, emerging strategies, and collaborative efforts aimed at rethinking fire management in the region.
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Shifts in seasonality and increases in hydroclimate whiplash are increasing California wildfire risk
Lecture
Abundant evidence suggests climate change has already increased wildfire risk in California, mainly due to increases in both mean and episodic extreme landscape-scale vegetation aridity. Warming temperatures and increasing evaporative demand have directly driven most of this observed trend, and will continue to be prominent with further warming.
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Lecture
Many houses still stand among the blocks of fire-ravaged neighborhoods of both the Palisades and Eaton Fire footprints, each offering clues about what they and the humans who were around experienced during January 7-8, 2025. A squirt gun, a blender used to scoop water from a pool, fence panels on the ground with cut lines or broken edges, gates off their hinges, rub marks from fire hoses on cement, and a shovel in…
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Lecture
Historical and contemporary policies and practices, including the suppression of lightning-ignited fires and the removal of intentional fires ignited by Indigenous peoples, have resulted in over a century of fire exclusion across many of the United States’ landscapes.
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Lecture
Wildfires are ubiquitous and an integral part of the Earth System. Although they can be a destructive force, they are vital for maintaining the biodiversity and functioning of many ecosystems. Wildfire-induced changes in vegetation and landscape properties also have important feedbacks to climate through modulating water- and energy-exchanges and the carbon cycle.