Natural History of Fire & Flood Cycles

[Subdeacon Joe]

Pretty Darned Good Read

 

 

 

from the

Federal Wildland Fire Management Policy & Program Review, Draft Report - June 9, 1995

The July/August 1995 issue of Sierra magazine featured an article entitled "Only You Can Postpone Forest Fires". Although the message of this title may falsely incriminate Smokey Bear for the current pyrotechnic state of America's wildlands, it does imply an important fact; our wildland vegetation burns. It burns periodically, and must burn in order to survive. In much of California, the problem is not so much the fact that it burns but that all too many people chose to build within it, surrounded by what many consider to be a sea of gasoline. A combination of ignorance and several million years of evolution have combined to create a deadly situation along the serene and scenic battlefront commonly referred to as the 'wildland/urban interface'. The situation has been further exacerbated by over a hundred years of fire suppression where man has tried to control nature, usually with disastrous results.

Fire is an essential part of most wildland ecosystems. In Mediterranean climates around the world, plant species have adapted to a point that they would not exist without the presence of fire. Wildland fires spawn a period of rebirth and vigor in post-fire environments by removing dead materials and by releasing nutrients back to the environment that are locked up in mature plants and organic litter. Many fire prone habitats exist around the globe, however, this paper will focus on the Mediterranean climate of Southern California, and its associated plant communities. Further emphasis shall be placed on the Santa Monica Mountains region where the fire/flood cycle has existed for millions of years, and where impacts of living in the wildland/urban interface have been so clearly illustrated following the Green Meadow and Old Topanga Firestorms of 1993. However, it should be noted that the fire/flood cycle is not unique to the Santa Monica Mountains, and that much of California and the West is under the influence of this cycle as well, although some differences will occur due to habitat type, and the environmental conditions and other factors present.

 

 

 

Chaparral, a Fire Ecology Mediterranean/Chaparral Climate

Chaparral habitat covers only about 8.5 percent of California, and only ranges in elevation from near sea level to over 5,000' in Southern California, and up to 3,000' in Northern California. Yet, it is considered by many to be the most characteristic vegetative community of the state (Hanes 1987). This is especially true in Southern California. Chaparral communities experience long dry summers, and receive most of their annual precipitation, 10 to 32 inches per year, from Winter rains (Radtke 1983). Although chaparral is commonly referred to as one community there are two distinct types; hard chaparral and soft chaparral, more commonly referred to as chaparral and coastal sage scrub respectively.