Erratum: Interactions between forest heterogeneity and surface fire regimes in the southern Sierra Nevada

1999 ◽  
Vol 29 (5) ◽  
pp. 646
Author(s):  
Carol Miller ◽  
Dean L Urban
Keyword(s):  
Sierra Nevada ◽  
Fire Regimes ◽  
Surface Fire ◽  
Forest Heterogeneity

Interactions between forest heterogeneity and surface fire regimes in the southern Sierra Nevada

1999 ◽  
Vol 29 (2) ◽  
pp. 202-212 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carol Miller ◽  
Dean L Urban
Keyword(s):  
Spatial Heterogeneity ◽  
Spatial Pattern ◽  
Sierra Nevada ◽  
Fire Regime ◽  
Regular Structure ◽  
Fire Regimes ◽  
Surface Fire ◽  
Surface Fires ◽  
Crown Fires ◽  
Wide Range

Fire is a major agent of spatial pattern formation in forests, as it creates a mosaic of burned and unburned patches. While most research has focused on landscape-level patterns created by crown fires, millions of hectares of forests in North America are subject to surface fire regimes. A spatially explicit forest gap model developed for the Sierra Nevada was used to evaluate the influence of surface fire regimes on the heterogeneity of forest structure and composition within forest stands. Forest pattern was evaluated for a wide range of topographic positions in Sequoia National Park, California, to determine if repeated surface fires amplify existing spatial patterns. The spatial heterogeneity of some forest characteristics increased under a simulated fire regime relative to scenarios without fire. Although a distinct and regular fire-generated spatial pattern was not detected with an analysis of spatial autocorrelation, simulated surface fires did alter the spatial heterogeneity within a forest stand, primarily by degrading a regular structure that is imposed by competition for light in the absence of fire. The interaction between surface fires and forest pattern may be qualitatively different from that which occurs in forests subject to crown fires. As such, what has been learned about forests dominated by crown fires may not apply to forests subject to surface fire regimes.

A model of surface fire, climate and forest pattern in the Sierra Nevada, California

1999 ◽  
Vol 114 (2-3) ◽  
pp. 113-135 ◽  
Author(s):  
Carol Miller ◽  
Dean L Urban
Keyword(s):  
Sierra Nevada ◽  
Surface Fire

scholarly journals Variation in fire scar phenology from mixed conifer trees in the Sierra Nevada

2018 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 101-104 ◽  
Author(s):  
Scott L. Stephens ◽  
Liam Maier ◽  
Lilah Gonen ◽  
Jennifer D. York ◽  
Brandon M. Collins ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Sierra Nevada ◽  
Fire History ◽  
Fire Regimes ◽  
Fire Season ◽  
Mixed Conifer ◽  
Outer Bark ◽  
Individual Tree ◽  
Fire Scar ◽  
The Individual ◽  
In Fire

Fire scar based studies have provided robust reconstructions of past fire regimes. The season in which a fire occurs can have considerable impacts to ecosystems but inference on seasonality from fire scars is relatively uncertain. This study examined patterns in the phenology of cambium formation and wounding responses in the five common mixed conifer tree species of the Sierra Nevada. The outer bark was shaved on 35 trees and individual locations within the shaved portions were wounded systematically by applying direct heat using a handheld torch. Most of the trees had not commenced annual ring development by the first burning treatment in late May. By the second treatment, scars were identified mostly within the early or middle earlywood, although variation was high compared with other treatment periods. By late October, all scars were recorded at the ring boundary. Although intra-ring scar positions generally followed a logical temporal pattern, there was high tree to tree variation such as Douglas-fir (Pseudotsuga menziesii (Mirb.) Franco) burned on 26 June induced scars in the early, mid, and late earlywood depending on the individual tree. This high variation makes it somewhat challenging to precisely assign past fire season to published fire history studies.

Fuel treatment effects on modeled landscape-level fire behavior in the northern Sierra Nevada

2010 ◽  
Vol 40 (9) ◽  
pp. 1751-1765 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jason J. Moghaddas ◽  
Brandon M. Collins ◽  
Kurt Menning ◽  
Emily E.Y. Moghaddas ◽  
Scott L. Stephens
Keyword(s):  
Sierra Nevada ◽  
Fire Behavior ◽  
Treatment Strategies ◽  
Weather Conditions ◽  
Fire Regimes ◽  
Flame Length ◽  
Fuel Treatment ◽  
Burn Probability ◽  
Pre Treatment ◽  
Landscape Level

Across the western United States, decades of fire exclusion combined with past management history have contributed to the current condition of extensive areas of high-density, shade-tolerant coniferous stands that are increasingly prone to high-severity fires. Here, we report the modeled effects of constructed defensible fuel profile zones and group selection treatments on crown fire potential, flame length, and conditional burn probabilities across 11 land allocation types for an 18 600 ha study area within the northern Sierra Nevada, California. Fire modeling was completed using FlamMap and FARSITE based on landscape files developed with high-resolution aerial (IKONOS) imagery, ground-based plot data, and integrated data from ARCFUELS and the Forest Vegetation Simulator. Under modeled 97th percentile weather conditions, average conditional burn probability was reduced between pre- and post-treatment landscapes. A more detailed simulation of a hypothetical fire burning under fairly severe fire weather, or “problem fire”, revealed a 39% reduction in final fire size for the treated landscape relative to the pre-treatment condition. To modify fire behavior at a landscape level, a combination of fuel treatment strategies that address topographic location, land use allocations, vegetation types, and fire regimes is needed.

Quantifying the fire regime distributions for severity in Yosemite National Park, California, USA

2011 ◽  
Vol 20 (2) ◽  
pp. 223 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea E. Thode ◽  
Jan W. van Wagtendonk ◽  
Jay D. Miller ◽  
James F. Quinn
Keyword(s):  
Sierra Nevada ◽  
National Park ◽  
Fire Regime ◽  
Fire Severity ◽  
Fire Regimes ◽  
Montane Forest ◽  
Subalpine Forest ◽  
Yosemite National Park ◽  
Forest Zone ◽  
Frequency Distributions

This paper quantifies current fire severity distributions for 19 different fire-regime types in Yosemite National Park, California, USA. Landsat Thematic Mapper remote sensing data are used to map burn severity for 99 fires (cumulatively over 97 000 ha) that burned in Yosemite over a 20-year period. These maps are used to quantify the frequency distributions of fire severity by fire-regime type. A classification is created for the resultant distributions and they are discussed within the context of four vegetation zones: the foothill shrub and woodland zone; the lower montane forest zone; the upper montane forest zone and the subalpine forest zone. The severity distributions can form a building block from which to discuss current fire regimes across the Sierra Nevada in California. This work establishes a framework for comparing the effects of current fires on our landscapes with our notions of how fires historically burned, and how current fire severity distributions differ from our desired future conditions. As this process is refined, a new set of information will be available to researchers and land managers to help understand how fire regimes have changed from the past and how we might attempt to manage them in the future.

scholarly journals Frequent burning in chir pine forests, Uttarakhand, India

Fire Ecology ◽  
2021 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Peter Z. Fulé ◽  
Satish C. Garkoti ◽  
Rajeev L. Semwal
Keyword(s):  
Tree Ring ◽  
Structural Integrity ◽  
Fire Regimes ◽  
Pine Forests ◽  
Research Network ◽  
Fire Season ◽  
Human Populations ◽  
Fire Scars ◽  
Surface Fire ◽  
Chir Pine

Abstract Background Subtropical coniferous forests of the lesser Himalaya provide critical ecosystem services but fire regimes have received limited scientific attention. We reconstructed fire regimes using tree-ring methods in a chir pine (Pinus roxburghii Sarg.) forest of Uttarakhand, India. We cross-dated tree-ring samples with fire scars from 36 trees at three sites near rural villages between 1535 and 1848 m elevation. Results Fires were highly frequent (mean fire intervals all <6 yr) but of low severity, so most mature trees of this thick-barked species survived numerous burns. Fire scars occurred primarily in the dormant period to the middle of early wood formation in tree-rings, consistent with fire season records. Despite the high fire frequency, fires were mostly asynchronous among the three sites, indicating a bottom-up pattern of local ignitions. We observed that resin tapping of the pines interacted with surface fire by allowing fire to burn into the wood of some tapped trees and weaken their structural integrity to the point of breakage. Conclusions Ongoing frequent surface fire regimes linked to human land use are prominent disturbance factors in chir pine forests. Given that these forests support substantial human populations and form part of the watershed for many more people, the effects of anthropogenic fire and interactions with resin-tapping merit further investigation at landscape to regional scales. We suggest developing a research network in Himalayan forests as well as more broadly across southeast Asian pine forests to track interacting disturbances and their ecological and social implications.

scholarly journals Thermal alteration of soil organic matter properties: a systematic study to infer response of Sierra Nevada climosequence soils to forest fires

2016 ◽  
Author(s):  
Samuel N. Araya ◽  
Marilyn L. Fogel ◽  
Asmeret Asefaw Berhe
Keyword(s):  
Organic Matter ◽  
Soil Organic Matter ◽  
Sierra Nevada ◽  
Forest Fires ◽  
Global Climate ◽  
Aggregate Size ◽  
Fire Regimes ◽  
Thermal Alteration ◽  
Size Fractions ◽  
C And N

Abstract. Fire is a major driver of soil organic matter (SOM) dynamics, and contemporary global climate change is changing global fire regimes. We investigated thermal alteration of SOM properties by exposing five different topsoils (0 to 5 cm depth) from the western Sierra Nevada Climosequence to a range of temperatures that are expected during prescribed and wild fires (150, 250, 350, 450, 550 and 650 °C), and determined temperature thresholds for major shifts in SOM properties. With increase in temperature, we found that the concentrations of C and N decreased in a similar pattern among all five soils that varied considerably in their original SOM concentrations and mineralogies. Soils were separated into discrete size classes by dry sieving. The C and N concentrations in the larger aggregate size fractions (2–0.25 mm) decreased with increase in temperature that at 450 °C temperature, the remaining C and N were almost entirely associated with the smaller aggregate size fractions (

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