Free Standard AU & NZ Shipping For All Book Orders Over $80!
Register      Login
International Journal of Wildland Fire International Journal of Wildland Fire Society
Journal of the International Association of Wildland Fire
Shopping Cart: ( empty )
You are here: Home > Journals > WF > WF08162
RESEARCH ARTICLE
Contents Vol 19(4)

Effect of fire weather, fuel age and topography on patterns of remnant vegetation following a large fire event in southern California, USA

Nell Blodgett A C E , Douglas A. Stow A , Janet Franklin B D and Allen S. Hope A
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations

A Department of Geography, San Diego State University, 5500 Campanile Dr, San Diego, CA 92182, USA.

B Department of Biology, San Diego State University, 5500 Campanile Dr, San Diego, CA 92182, USA.

C Present address: National Park Service, Denver Service Center, Planning Division, 12795 W. Alameda Parkway, Denver, CO 80212, USA.

D Present address: School of Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning, PO Box 857302, Arizona State University, Tempe, AZ 85287-5302, USA.

E Corrresponding author. Email: nell_j_blodgett@nps.gov

International Journal of Wildland Fire 19(4) 415-426 https://doi.org/10.1071/WF08162
Submitted: 16 September 2008  Accepted: 28 August 2009   Published: 24 June 2010

Abstract

Large fire events in southern California have burned thousands of hectares over the past decade. Landscape pattern and natural system processes are shaped by these large conflagrations, thereby influencing the ecological structure and functioning of the region. Unburned vegetation remnants can be used to assess general fuel consumption and to provide valuable information regarding fire behaviour, weather effects and post-fire regeneration. For this study, post-fire unburned vegetation was mapped at a very fine spatial resolution based on semi-automatic classification of airborne large-format multispectral image data and compared across different fire environment zones within the 2003 Cedar Fire burn perimeter. Landscape metrics were used to characterise unburned vegetation patches for a section of the Cedar Fire affected by Santa Ana weather conditions and for a section of the fire that burned under non-Santa Ana weather conditions. Maps of remnant vegetation and associated landscape metrics were compared across these two sections and within shrubland community type, topography and age-class strata using inferential statistics. Key findings reveal more unburned vegetation in larger, rounder patches in the non-Santa Ana section. Pre-fire stand age greater than 6 years showed little effect on the amount or pattern of unburned vegetation within the Santa Ana section.


References


Chuvieco E (1999) Measuring changes in landscape pattern from satellite images: short-term effects of fire on spatial diversity. International Journal of Remote Sensing  20, 2331–2346.
| Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar | Cleveland National Forest (2003) The 2003 San Diego County Fire Siege: fire safety review. USDA Forest Service, Cleveland National Forest. Available at http://www.fs.fed.us/r5/cleveland/fire/ [Verified 23 January 2007]

Dunn AT (1989) The effects of prescribed burning on fire hazard in chaparral. In ‘Proceedings of the Symposium on Fire and Watershed Management’, 26–28 October 1988, Sacramento, CA. (Tech. Coord. NH Berg) USDA Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Forest and Range Experiment Station, General Technical Report PSW-109, pp. 23–29. (Berkeley, CA)

Franklin J, Coulter C , Rey SJ (2004) Change over 70 years in a southern California chaparral community related to fire history. Journal of Vegetation Science  15, 701–710.
| Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar | Frohn RC (1998) ‘Remote Sensing for Landscape Ecology.’ (Lewis: Boca Raton, FL)

Hanes TL (1971) Succession after fire in the chaparral of southern California. Ecological Monographs  41, 27–52.
| Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar | Hughes M, Hall A, Kim J (2009) Anthropogenic reduction of Santa Ana winds. Paper CEC-500-2009-015-D. (California Climate Change Center) Available at http://www.energy.ca.gov/2009publications/CEC-500-2009-015/CEC-500-2009-015-D.PDF [Verified 16 April 2010]

Jensen JR (2005) ‘Introductory Digital Image Processing: a Remote Sensing Perspective.’ Prentice Hall Series in Geographic Information Science. (Prentice Hall: Upper Saddle River, NJ)

Kashian DM, Tinker DB, Turner MG , Scarpace FL (2004) Spatial heterogeneity of lodgepole pine sapling densities following the 1988 fires in Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming, USA. Canadian Journal of Remote Sensing  34, 2263–2276.
Keeley JE (2000) Chaparral. In ‘North American Terrestrial Vegetation’. (Eds MG Barbour, Billings WD) pp. 203–253. (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge, UK)

Keeley JE , Fotheringham CJ (2001) Historic fire regime in southern California shrublands. Conservation Biology  15, 1536–1548.
| Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar | McGarigal K, Marks BJ (1995) FRAGSTATS: spatial pattern analysis program for quantifying landscape structure. USDA Forest Service Pacific Northwest Research Station, General Technical Report PNW-GTR-351. (Portland, OR)

McMichael CE, Hope AS, Roberts DA , Anaya MR (2004) Post-fire recovery of leaf area index in California chaparral: a remote sensing-chronosequence approach. International Journal of Remote Sensing  25, 4743–4760.
| Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar | Pyne SJ (1982) ‘Fire in America.’ (Princeton University Press: Princeton, NH)

Pyne SJ, Andrews PL, Laven RD (1996) ‘Introduction to Wildland Fire.’ (Wiley: New York)

Quinn RD (1990) Habitat preferences and distribution of mammals in California chaparral. USDA Forest Service, Pacific Southwest Research Station, Research Paper PSW-202. (Berkeley, CA)

Radeloff VC, Hammer RB, Stewart SI, Fried JS, Holcomb SS , McKeefry JF (2005) The wildland–urban interface in the United States. Ecological Applications  15, 799–805.
| Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar |

Schmalbach HL, Franklin J , O’Leary JF (2007) Patterns of post-fire regeneration in a southern California mixed chaparral community. Madrono  54, 1–12.
| Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar |

Schwilk DW , Keeley JE (1998) Rodent populations after a large wildfire in California chaparral and coastal sage scrub. The Southwestern Naturalist  43, 480–483.


Syphard AD, Franklin J , Keeley JE (2006) Simulating the effects of frequent fire on southern California coastal shrublands. Ecological Applications  16, 1744–1756.
| Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar | PubMed |

Syphard AD, Clarke KC , Franklin J (2007) Simulating fire frequency and urban growth in southern California coastal shrublands, USA. Landscape Ecology  22, 431–445.
| Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar |

van Wagtendonk JW, Root RR , Key CH (2004) Comparison of AVIRIS and Landsat ETM+ detection capabilities for burn severity. Remote Sensing of Environment  92, 397–408.
| Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar |

Westerling AL , Cayan DR (2004) Climate, Santa Ana winds and autumn wildfires in southern California. Eos, Transactions, American Geophysical Union  85, 31.
| Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar |

Zedler PH, Gautier CR , McMaster GS (1983) Vegetation change in response to extreme events: the effect of a short interval between fires in California chaparral and coastal scrub. Ecology  64, 809–818.
| Crossref | GoogleScholarGoogle Scholar |