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Fire regimes of California coastal and valley hardwood communities

Citation:
U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Missoula Fire Sciences Laboratory. 2012. Information from LANDFIRE on fire regimes of California coastal and valley hardwood communities. In: Fire Effects Information System, [Online]. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service, Rocky Mountain Research Station, Missoula Fire Sciences Laboratory (Producer). Available: www.fs.fed.us/database/feis/fire_regimes/CA_coast_valley_hardwoods/all.html [].

A complete Fire Regime Synthesis for California coastal and valley hardwood communities has not been published in the Fire Effects Information System. However, information is available from LANDFIRE succession modeling of Biophysical Settings (BpS). Table 1 summarizes LANDFIRE data on the BpSs in California coastal and valley hardwood communities. Figure 2 shows where they occur. Table A1 lists the BpSs and the results of LANDFIRE succession modeling for each BpS in California coastal and valley hardwood communities. See the FEIS synthesis on montane riparian communities of California and southwestern Oregon for detailed information on fire regimes in hardwood and conifer riparian communities, and the Fire Regime Report on Sierra Nevada hardwoods for information on LANDFIRE successional and fire regime modeling of BpSs in those hardwood communities.

Table 1—Modeled fire intervals and severities in California coastal and valley hardwood communities [2].
Fire interval¹
Fire severity² (% of fires)
Number of Biophysical Settings (BpSs) in each fire regime group
Replacement Mixed Low I II III IV V NA³
8-16 years 2-10 2-44 49-91 10 0 0 0 0 0
¹Average historical fire interval derived from LANDFIRE succession modeling (labeled "MFRI" in LANDFIRE).
²Percentage of fires in 3 fire severity classes, derived from LANDFIRE succession modeling. Replacement-severity fires cause >75% kill or top-kill of the upper canopy layer; mixed-severity fires cause 26%-75%; low-severity fires cause <26% [1].
³NA (not applicable) refers to BpS models that did not include fire in simulations.

Figure 1a—California bay woodland in Marin County. Image © 2016 by Susan McDougal, www.treeslivehere.com. Used with permission.
Figure 1b—Valley oak woodland in Monterey County. Image © 1998 by Charles Webber, California Academy of Sciences. Used with permission.

Figure 2—Distribution of California coastal and valley hardwood communities based on the LANDFIRE Biophysical Settings (BpS) data layer [2]. Click on the map for a larger image.

Table 2—Dominant hardwood species in California coastal and valley hardwood communities modeled by LANDFIRE. Links go to FEIS Species Reviews.
Common name Scientific name
bigleaf maple Acer macrophyllum
blue oak Quercus douglasii
California black oak Quercus kelloggii
California bay Umbellularia californica
canyon live oak Quercus chrysolepis
coast live oak Quercus agrifolia
Engelmann oak Quercus engelmannii
interior live oak Quercus wislizeni
tanoak Notholithocarpus densiflorus
valley oak Quercus lobata

References:

1. Barrett, S.; Havlina, D.; Jones, J.; Hann, W.; Frame, C.; Hamilton, D.; Schon, K.; Demeo, T.; Hutter, L.; Menakis, J. 2010. Interagency fire regime condition class guidebook (FRCC), [Online], (Version 3.0). In: Interagency fire regime condition class website. U.S. Department of Agriculture, Forest Service; U.S. Department of the Interior; The Nature Conservancy (Producers). Available: https://www.frames.gov/files/7313/8388/1679/FRCC_Guidebook_2010_final.pdf [2017, March 1]. [85876]

2. LANDFIRE. 2008. CONUS refresh (LANDFIRE 1.1.0). Biophysical settings layer. In: LANDFIRE data distribution site, [Online]. In: LANDFIRE. U.S. Department of the Interior, Geological Survey (Producer). Available: https://landfire.cr.usgs.gov/viewer/ [2015, October 7]. [89416]
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