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Posts Tagged: fire

UCCE report: Local forest restoration teams effective at rapid response

UC Cooperative Extension and Feather River Resource Conservation District staff lead landowners on a tour in October 2022 of lands treated through efforts of the local Emergency Forest Restoration Team. Photo by Daylin Wade
 

Quickly planting trees after wildfires crucial for communities, ecosystems, carbon goals

As the climate crisis fuels more high-severity wildfires, many forests – adapted to bounce back from frequent but less-intense fires – are struggling to recover quickly.

“In a lot of locations, forests in the Sierra Nevada that burn at high severity are not regenerating on their own,” said Susie Kocher, University of California Cooperative Extension forestry and natural resources advisor for the Central Sierra. “They need to have living trees to drop seeds; if everything dies in an intense fire, then there's a high likelihood in those locations that trees might not return for a while.”

According to Kocher, a forest may take multiple decades to grow back on its own, seeding in very slowly from the edges of a burn. To speed up that regeneration process, a pilot program of local “Emergency Forest Restoration Teams,” or EFRTs, have been helping forest landowners rapidly remove dead trees, plant new seedlings and expedite other vital tasks after wildfires.

Kocher is a co-author of a recently released report evaluating the EFRTs, which appear to be effective in assisting often-overwhelmed private landowners navigate competitive funding programs and complicated permitting pathways after wildfire. Small private landowners in California own 7 million acres, comprising 22% of forested land across the state.

“None of our current assistance programs were really designed to rapidly respond to high-severity fire disasters,” Kocher said. “And we're just getting so much more high-severity fire now that there needed to be a different way of helping people, besides business as usual.”

Lead agencies improve coordination of restoration efforts

Drawing from a successful model in Washington, Kocher and other members of the Governor's Forest Management Task Force recommended the formation of EFRTs in 2019 and this recommendation made it into the California Wildfire and Forest Resilience Action Plan of 2021.

A healthy ponderosa pine seedling planted by the Caldor EFRT on private land in 2023. Severely burned, untreated forest land can be seen in the background. Photo by Daylin Wade

Following the Caldor, Dixie and Tamarack fires during that year, disaster relief funds from CAL FIRE and the U.S. Forest Service enabled the establishment of pilot EFRTs in each of the affected regions. A key innovation was designating a local lead agency to coordinate restoration efforts: the El Dorado Resource Conservation District (Caldor), the Feather River Resource Conservation District (Dixie) and Alpine County (Tamarack).

“The idea is that one well-established local agency gets the funds to carry out all the reforestation work,” Kocher said. “They find contractors for the landowners and plan and carry out all the work needed, including dead tree removal, site preparation and replanting; this helps it be more coordinated across the landscape and reduces competition for contractors.”

“Also, for most of that work, there's no cost to the landowner – which is a huge benefit to them, because these things can get really expensive, like many thousands of dollars an acre,” Kocher added.

Although there was an initial steep learning curve for the local lead agencies on the complexities of reforestation and the maze of required permits, they quickly executed a significant number of forest restoration treatments. Within two years, the three pilot teams had collectively completed over 2,500 acres of dead tree removal and 1,400 acres of conifer planting.

“The overwhelming benefit of the pilots was that a lot of work got done on the ground, that otherwise would not have been done – at least not in the timeframe that was made possible by the EFRTs,” said Daylin Wade, a UCCE staff research associate and co-author of the recent report, who synthesized feedback from interviews of professionals involved in the program.

Rapid reforestation better financially, ecologically

Both Wade and Kocher underscored how the EFRTs were crucial in completing restoration tasks in a timely manner. Removal of dead wood becomes trickier and more expensive over time, as the trees decay and are dangerous to cut down.

“A major accomplishment was getting trees out of there while it was both safe and economically viable to remove those trees – and getting trees in the ground before shrubs dominate the site,” Wade explained.

It's also imperative to quickly remove the dead trees to reduce the fuel load and minimize the chances of re-burn in the area.

“If you're not doing this work, then you're actually endangering the investment that you're putting into rebuilding communities that burned, because they're in danger of burning again if you have huge piles of dead trees everywhere,” Kocher said.

Furthermore, expediting those tasks helps restore the forest cover that is crucial for sequestering carbon and achieving the goals of California's sweeping climate action plan – such as attaining carbon neutrality by 2045.

“We have very ambitious carbon goals for our forests in California, and so reestablishing them – even on private lands – is a public benefit,” Kocher said.

Evaluation of EFRTs by UC Cooperative Extension continues

In addition to enumerating the progress of the three EFRT case studies, the evaluation report also lists recommendations to further enhance the program, such as securing rapid and flexible funding for future EFRTs, improving guidance for local lead agencies and streamlining permitting processes.

The authors also stressed the need to expand opportunities for the commercial sale of woody material in the aftermath of a wildfire event. Selling logs and wood chips reduces the volume of material that would need to processed onsite by the EFRTs and their contractors, thereby defraying some of the costs for that work.

But there simply hasn't been a sufficient market for that woody biomass.

“It's a big barrier,” Kocher said. “If we had a healthier timber market, it would be easier to make this stuff pay its own way and be less of a subsidized endeavor.”

UC Cooperative Extension's EFRT evaluation work – made possible by funding from the U.S. Forest Service State, Private and Tribal Forestry, Region 5 – will continue for the next couple years. On the heels of this first report, Wade will next gather and summarize feedback from private landowners on whether the EFRTs are meeting their goals.

And, later this summer and fall, researchers will begin assessing the ecological success of the plantings in the restoration areas, surveying seedling survival and gauging the volume of competing vegetation.

“It's hugely encouraging that we've gotten all these trees in the ground, but it's not the end of the process – it's just the beginning,” Kocher said. “Trees and forests need to be maintained over time, so this next step will let us see how successful that has been, and if there are additional steps needed to actually ensure that these trees succeed and thrive.”

The full report, dedicated to the memory of report co-author and UCCE advisor Ryan Tompkins, can be found at https://ucanr.edu/efrt.

Posted on Tuesday, July 30, 2024 at 9:39 AM
Focus Area Tags: Environment, Innovation, Natural Resources

Wildfire preparedness strategies for farms covered in UC ANR webinars

UCCE advisors will discuss strategies for preparing farm land and structures to resist wildfire in May 21 webinar. Brush burned at Napa County vineyard. Photo by Tori Norville

UCCE advisors will present webinars on May 21 and 28

Late spring rains have delayed California's fire season this year, which provides farmers and ranchers an opportunity to improve their wildfire preparedness. Barns, wood fencing, hay and other property commonly found on farms have inherent vulnerabilities to wildfire. 

Fortunately, buildings and infrastructure can be hardened and maintained to reduce their vulnerability to fire and fire-related damage to agricultural resources. Having a plan in place to keep livestock safe and healthy is essential to maintaining animal health and resume operations as quickly as possible post-wildfire. Join the UC Agriculture and Natural Resources Fire Network team to learn about wildfire preparedness strategies for farms and ranches.

The two-part webinar series will cover hardening structures and managing livestock during wildfire.

Part 1: Ranch Hardening and Wildfire Preparedness Strategies for Agricultural Structures

  • May 21 at 6-7 p.m.
  • Join UC Cooperative Extension fire advisor Luca Carmignani and UCCE forest advisor Yana Valachovic to discuss best practices for incorporating principles of structure hardening and defensible space into agricultural structures and operations. 
  • Register by May 20 at https://bit.ly/3y1MbuP. Link to webinar will be emailed to registrants.

Part 2: The Realities of Managing Livestock Health During Wildfire

  • May 28 at 6-7:30 p.m.
  • Join UCCE livestock and natural resource advisors and our partners for a set of presentations about managing livestock health during wildfire events and what to do if you find yourself trapped by an approaching wildfire.
  • Register by May 20 at https://bit.ly/3y1MbuP. Link to webinar will be emailed to registrants.
Posted on Friday, May 10, 2024 at 1:28 PM
Focus Area Tags: Agriculture

Car fumes, weeds pose double-whammy for fire-loving native plants

In September 2013, a few months after the Springs Fire blazed through the Santa Monica Mountains in Southern California, a team led by Justin Valliere started laying out plots to study how the combination of invasive weeds and air pollution would impact the resurgence of native plants that usually flourish after a wildfire. Their tests tried to mimic nitrogen coming from vehicle exhaust in nearby Los Angeles. Photo by Justin Valliere, UC Davis

Wildflower displays threatened

Northwest of Los Angeles, springtime brings native wildflowers to bloom in the Santa Monica Mountains. These beauties provide food for insects, maintain healthy soil and filter water seeping into the ground – in addition to offering breathtaking displays of color.

They're also good at surviving after wildfire, having adapted to it through millennia. But new research shows wildflowers that usually would burst back after a blaze and a good rain are losing out to the long-standing, double threat of city smog and nonnative weeds.

A recent study led by Justin Valliere, assistant professor in the UC Davis Department of Plant Sciences, found that native wildflowers and other plants that typically flourish following a fire were, instead, replaced by invasive plants on land that received the kind of nitrogen contained in vehicle emissions.

Shooting stars, or Dodecatheon clevelandii, is typical of the native plants that bloom in even higher abundance following a fire and a good rain in the Santa Monica Mountains of southern California. Photo by Justin Valliere, UC Davis

“Many native plants in fire-prone areas rely on fire, and some are entirely dependent on it. Some are even most abundant after a fire,” said Valliere, a UC Cooperative Extension specialist in invasive weed and restoration ecology. “But we found that these fire-following species may be especially vulnerable to the combination of nitrogen pollution and invasive plants.”

That's part of the reason why native plants in these mountains have been declining.

Seeds – banked in the soil and waiting to sprout

The problem faced by native plants can be compared to a drawn-down bank account: Funds withdrawn are not being replaced.

It starts with fire, an important ecological process, Valliere said. Flames burn through plants on the surface and return their nutrients to the soil. Seeds sleeping in the ground wait for the next rain to sprout, then use those nutrients to grow.

“Plant diversity is often highest in growing seasons immediately after a site burns,” he said.

But invading plants have many advantages over native ones. They often sprout earlier, grow faster and create more seeds, all while tolerating drought.

“They're like cheaters,” Valliere said. “They don't follow the same rules.”

Nitrogen, too, is an important piece of every plant's nutrition. They all get a fertilizing boost from nitrogen that floats up in vehicle emissions and falls to the ground. But the invaders use nitrogen and other nutrients to grow faster, winning the race for water and sunlight. As a result, fewer native plants reach maturity, producing fewer seeds that keep their populations thriving.

When the bank balance reaches zero

The 2013 Springs Fire gave Valliere a unique opportunity to study the combined impacts of wildfire and extra nitrogen. He and colleagues from UC Riverside and the National Park Service created test plots in the Santa Monica Mountains where the fire had burned. Then, they added nitrogen to the soil to mimic the amount and type that LA's smog would deposit. Over the study's three years, native plants that typically would have flourished after wildfire instead declined even faster in the plots with added nitrogen.

Native seeds sprouted, but didn't flower. Over time, the soil's bank of seeds drew down.

In spring of 2015, the area that had been burned by the 2013 Springs Fire was again in bloom. The clearwater cryptantha shown here, or Cryptantha intermedia, is a native plant that blooms all over California. It is especially abundant in the coastal south. Photo by Justin Valliere, UC Davis

“Each seed has one chance to flower and reproduce,” Valliere said. “If a seed grows and gets outcompeted, that seed has lost its chance to replenish the seed bank.”

Without the chance to replenish their bank account, native plants will die out, and the whole ecosystem will be thrown out of balance.

“There is inherent value in biodiversity,” Valliere said. “These invasive weeds could prevent the re-establishment of native shrubs after fire, sometimes forever altering the plant community.”

The loss of native plants can have cascading effects on the larger environment, he added. Problems can include the loss of native bees that feed on the flowers, and mudslides when rain makes hillsides unstable.

This problem is likely to repeat in similar areas where biodiversity is highest after wildfires – including parts of the Mediterranean basin, southern Africa and Australia. The addition of city smog “could have serious consequences for the biodiversity of fire-prone ecosystems worldwide,” Valliere warned.

Read the paper, “Nitrogen deposition suppresses ephemeral post-fire plant diversity,” by Justin Valliere, Irina Irvine and Edith Allen.

This article was first published on the UC Davis Department of Plant Sciences website.

Posted on Wednesday, February 21, 2024 at 9:54 AM
  • Author: Grace Fruto, UC Davis
  • Author: Trina Kleist, UC Davis
Focus Area Tags: Environment, Natural Resources

20-year study confirms California forests are healthier when burned or thinned

UC Berkeley's Blodgett Forest Research Station is the home of an ongoing, 20-year study investigating the impacts of prescribed fire and resoration thinning on forest health and wildfire risk in the Sierra Nevada. Photo by Ariel Roughton
A 20-year experiment in the Sierra Nevada confirms that different forest management techniques — prescribed burning, restoration thinning or a combination of both — are effective at reducing the risk of catastrophic wildfire in California.
 
These treatments also improve forest health, making trees more resilient to stressors like drought and bark beetles, and they do not negatively impact plant or wildlife biodiversity within individual tree stands, the research found. The findings of the experiment, called the Fire Surrogate Study, are published online in the journal Ecological Applications.
 
"The research is pretty darn clear that these treatments are effective — very effective," said study lead author Scott Stephens, a professor of fire science at the University of California, Berkeley. "I hope this lets people know that there is great hope in doing these treatments at scale, without any negative consequences."
 
Last year, California announced a strategic plan for expanding the use of prescribed fire to 400,000 acres annually by 2025. However, the use of beneficial fire continues to be hindered by multiple factors, including the lack of a trained workforce, the need for specific weather conditions for burning, and fears about potential risks.
 
This study shows that restoration thinning is also a viable option for forest management and can be used in tandem with beneficial fire without harming forest health or biodiversity.
 
"Our findings show that there's not just one solution — there are multiple things that you can do to impact the risk of catastrophic fire," said study co-author Ariel Roughton, research station manager at Berkeley Forests. "Folks can choose from different combinations of treatments that might fit their needs, and we can show them how those treatments might impact things like wildfire behavior, tree growth and carbon holding in their forests."

UC Berkeley's Blodgett Forest Research Station is a model for how California can reduce the risk of severe wildfire and improve the ecological health of its forests. (UC Berkeley video by Roxanne Makasdjian and Jason Blalock)

Surrogates to wildfire

Over the past two decades, Stephens and other researchers at Berkeley Forests have used prescribed burning, restoration thinning or a combination of both to treat plots of land at Blodgett Forest Research Station, a 4,000-acre experimental forest located about 65 miles northeast of Sacramento on the unceded lands of the Nisenan peoples.
 
The Fire Surrogate Study was one of 13 studies across the U.S. first launched in 1999 with funding from the U.S. Joint Fire Science Program. Its aim was to study whether the two treatments could mimic the beneficial impacts of lightning fires and Indigenous burning practices on California's forests, which have become dense and overgrown after a century of logging and fire suppression.
 
"Prescribed fire and restoration thinning are both surrogates for wildfire, a key process that happened frequently in California before European colonization," Stephens said. "The impetus of this study was: If you're going to implement these treatments at a large scale, is there anything that's going to be lost?"
 
This photo of a research plot at Blodgett Forest was taken by Scott Stephens in 2002, before being treated with fire.
The study created nine experimental plots and three control plots at Blodgett. Three of the experimental plots were managed only using prescribed burns; three burns occurred over the course of 20 years. Three other experimental plots were first thinned and then burned, and the final three were treated only with restoration thinning. The control plots were left to grow without human interference except continued fire suppression.
 
At the end of the 20-year period, the researchers surveyed the vegetation in each plot and used computational modeling to estimate how many trees were likely to survive wildfire. They found that all three types of experimental plots were significantly more resilient to wildfire than the control plots, showing an 80% likelihood that at least 80% of trees would survive.
 
They also calculated the "index of competition," a measure of how strongly trees must compete for resources like sunlight, water and soil nutrients. By removing excess trees and vegetation, thinning and burning both limited the amount of competition between trees, making them less vulnerable to stressors, like drought and bark beetles.
 
However, the plots that were treated with a combination of thinning and fire had the best index of competition, suggesting that they would be the most resilient to the impacts of climate change.
 
"When you combine thinning with fire, you're able to modify all different levels of the forest structure, and it speeds up the timeline for achieving a more resilient structure," Roughton said.
 
Restoration thinning can also provide financial benefits: Often, larger trees can be sold to sawmills, and the proceeds can be used to help offset the cost of forest management. Over the course of 20 years, the treatments at Blodgett were entirely paid for by revenue from timber.
 
"When I go to Sacramento and talk about [forest management] with legislators, the first question they always ask is about cost," Stephens said. "People in the state government are telling us that they can't be the sole source support for this work. That's why the economics are so important."
Scott Stephens at Blodgett Forest Research Station in late 2021. Evett Kilmartin/UC Regents

Trial by fire

In September 2022, the forests at Blodgett were subjected to a real-life test: On the morning of Sept. 9, 2022, the Mosquito Fire breached the north side of the property, burning approximately 300 acres before it was contained two days later.
 
One of the study's control plots was located directly in the path of the blaze, and more than 60% of the trees in this plot were completely scorched. However, neighboring experimental plots that had been treated with prescribed burns served as “fuel breaks,” burning less hot than the control and acting as staging areas for firefighters.
 
"We think that, overall, our management actions, coupled with the weather, did have a pretty big impact on the behavior of the fire," Roughton said.
 
The researchers have received a four-year grant from the Joint Fire Science Program to continue the Fire Surrogate Project. With the help of the grant, they have established a new control plot to replace the one that burned and plan to apply a fourth fire to the experimental burn-only plots.
 
They are also collaborating with the United Auburn Indian Community to reestablish Indigenous cultural burning at Blodgett.
 
"We want to be part of the solution, and that's part of our mission at Blodgett," Roughton said. "We hope that by doing these studies and bringing folks here to see the effects of the different treatments, they will take that back and apply it to the land that they're going to be managing."
 
Additional co-authors of the study include Daniel E. Foster, John J. Battles, Alexis A. Bernal, Brandon M. Collins, Rachelle Hedges and Robert A. York of UC Berkeley and Jason J. Moghaddas of the Spatial Informatics Group. This project was originally funded by the U.S. Joint Fire Science Program, and it has received additional support from the California Fourth Climate Change Assessment, the McIntire-Stennis Program, the California Greenhouse Gas Reduction Fund, and the UC Office of the President's UC Laboratory Fees Research Program. Smart Practices and Architecture for Prescribed Fires in California was also important to keeping this long-term project active.
 
Posted on Wednesday, December 13, 2023 at 8:45 AM
  • Author: Kara Manke, PhD, UC Berkeley Media Relations

More than 800 wildland fire professionals gather for international conference in Monterey

Fire professionals are gathering in Monterey Dec. 4-8 to discuss new and creative ways to address wildfire-related challenges. File photo by Evett Kilmartin

UC ANR among sponsors of 10th International Fire Ecology and Management Congress

Scientists, land managers, educators and students from a variety of organizations worldwide will gather from Dec. 4-8 in Monterey, California for the 10th International Fire Ecology and Management Congress. The conference is hosted by the Association for Fire Ecology in cooperation with the California Fire Science Consortium.

Major sponsors include University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources, with the Esselen Tribe of Monterey County as the host tribe. There are more than 25 additional sponsors and exhibitors representing federal and state agencies, universities, nonprofits, tribal organizations and companies.

UC ANR Fire Network Director Lenya Quinn-Davidson is a conference co-chair for the 10th International Fire Ecology and Management Congress. File photo by Evett Kilmartin

“As we know from recent fire events across the globe, wildland fire issues are complex and there is an urgent need to work together in new and creative ways to address wildfire-related challenges,” said Lenya Quinn-Davidson, Fire Network director at UC ANR. “We need to identify opportunities to promote fire-resilient communities and environments.”

This event will include workshops, field trips and three full days of presentations, discussion groups and networking opportunities around the theme, “Igniting Connections: Celebrating Our Fire Family Across Generations, Cultures and Disciplines.”

On Monday, Dec. 4, the Fire Congress will kick off with 10 workshops and trainings, offering opportunities for participants to build and apply new skills in modeling, collaborative planning, risk management and more. From Tuesday morning to Thursday afternoon, the Fire Congress program is filled with innovative plenary sessions, more than 500 oral and poster presentations, and opportunities for sharing information through discussion groups and meetings.

For the first time, the conference will also feature an Indigenous Culture and Art Showcase, taking place on Tuesday, Dec. 5. The entire event concludes on Friday, Dec. 8 with field trips to explore nearby natural areas to see how the concepts discussed at the Fire Congress are being applied in California.

Participants will be encouraged to share and explore proactive solutions that apply Western science and Indigenous knowledge to meet desired management and societal outcomes.

More conference information at http://afefirecongress.org.

MEDIA CONTACTS

Lenya Quinn-Davidson (University of California Agriculture and Natural Resources): lquinndavidson@ucanr.edu, 707-272-0637

Morgan Varner (Tall Timbers Research Station): mvarner@talltimbers.org, 707-845-1659

Jeffrey Kane (Cal Poly Humboldt): Jeffrey.Kane@humboldt.edu, 928-637-4128

Posted on Friday, December 1, 2023 at 8:58 AM
Focus Area Tags: Environment, Innovation, Natural Resources

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