Mapping fire regime ecoregions in California
Alexandra D. Syphard A B E and Jon E. Keeley C DA Conservation Biology Institute, 136 SW Washington Ave., Corvallis, OR 97333, USA.
B Sage Insurance Holdings, LLC, 600 California Street, San Francisco, CA 94108, USA.
C US Geological Survey, Western Ecological Research Center, Sequoia-Kings Canyon Field Station, 47050 Generals Highway, Three Rivers, CA 93271, USA.
D Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, University of California, 612 Charles E. Young Drive, South Los Angeles, CA 90095-7246, USA.
E Corresponding author. Email: asyphard@sageunderwriters.com
International Journal of Wildland Fire 29(7) 595-601 https://doi.org/10.1071/WF19136
Submitted: 5 September 2019 Accepted: 29 January 2020 Published: 4 March 2020
Abstract
The fire regime is a central framing concept in wildfire science and ecology and describes how a range of wildfire characteristics vary geographically over time. Understanding and mapping fire regimes is important for guiding appropriate management and risk reduction strategies and for informing research on drivers of global change and altered fire patterns. Most efforts to spatially delineate fire regimes have been conducted by identifying natural groupings of fire parameters based on available historical fire data. This can result in classes with similar fire characteristics but wide differences in ecosystem types. We took a different approach and defined fire regime ecoregions for California to better align with ecosystem types, without using fire as part of the definition. We used an unsupervised classification algorithm to segregate the state into spatial clusters based on distinctive biophysical and anthropogenic attributes that drive fire regimes – and then used historical fire data to evaluate the ecoregions. The fire regime ecoregion map corresponded well with the major land cover types of the state and provided clear separation of historical patterns in fire frequency and size, with lower variability in fire severity. This methodology could be used for mapping fire regimes in other regions with limited historical fire data or forecasting future fire regimes based on expected changes in biophysical characteristics.
Additional keywords: classification, ecosystems, fire frequency, fire history, global change, land cover, pyrogeography, scale.
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