Quantifying the fire regime distributions for severity in Yosemite National Park, California, USA
Andrea E. Thode A D E , Jan W. van Wagtendonk B , Jay D. Miller C and James F. Quinn D
+ Author Affiliations
- Author Affiliations
A School of Forestry, Northern Arizona University, PO Box 15018, Flagstaff, AZ 86011, USA.
B US Geological Survey, Western Ecological Research Center, Yosemite Field Station, El Portal, CA 95318, USA.
C US Forest Service, 3237 Peacekeeper Way, Suite 101, McClellan, CA 95652, USA.
D Department of Environmental Science and Policy, University of California Davis, One Shields Avenue, Davis, CA 95616, USA.
E Corresponding author. Email: andi.thode@nau.edu
International Journal of Wildland Fire 20(2) 223-239 https://doi.org/10.1071/WF09060
Submitted: 10 June 2009 Accepted: 15 June 2010 Published: 30 March 2011
Abstract
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.
Additional keywords: burn severity, dNBR, Landsat, RdNBR, Sierra Nevada.
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