Fire issues in California's Central Coast Region

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A watershed-related topic examined by the ENVS 560/L Watershed Systems class at CSUMB. This page aims to portray the benefits and challenges wildfire presents to the people and ecosystems of the Central Coast Region

Summary

The various ecosystems that comprise the central California landscape have adapted to fire over time.[1][2] As California's population grows, urban expansion into natural areas is becoming more commonplace, creating a higher risk to human life and infrastructure in the event of wildfire. Historically, lightning fires and purposeful ignitions by indigenous tribes ensured rather frequent fires of low to moderate severity.[3] Years of fire suppression, coupled with prolonged drought conditions, however, have changed the fire regime on the Central Coast,[4] yielding a greater challenge when it comes to mitigating fire damage to both ecosystems and man-made infrastructure.

Location and Management

Image 1. Public land distribution in Central Coastal California. Copyright Interactive Outdoors, Inc.[1]

Wildfires in the Central Coast Region occur on both private and public land on the Central Coast (Image 1). Due to the close proximity of different land jurisdictions in the area, fire management often involves multiple agencies including but not limited to: the Forest Service, CalFire, California State Parks, Bureau of Land Management, individual counties, volunteer fire brigades, and other entities that manage open space or rural areas.


In the early part of the 20th Century, United States land managers generally believed that fire exclusion promoted ecological stability. It wasn't until the mid 1960's that fire was scientifically proven to provide ecological benefits, resulting in gradual shifts in fire management policy to allow more fires to take their natural course.[5] As a result of changing policies and shifts in climatic patterns in the western United States, large wildfire frequency and duration have increased and wildfire seasons have lengthened since 1970.[6] Most recently, federal fire management policy has emphasized fuels management treatments such as prescribed burns and mechanical thinning to prevent catastrophic wildfires.[5]

Cost of Fire Management

Aid from county budgets. State of emergency funding from State of Federal sources.

Ecological Benefits of Fire

Image 2. California condor #167 in a burned out redwood cavity in Big Sur, CA, on 28 March 2006, Photo by Joseph Brandt, Ventana Wildlife Society.

Ecological benefits of wildfire on the Central Coast abound. The following list is a snapshot of some of the many benefits fire can bring to the ecosystems of the region:

  • Growth stimulation of native plants: The chaparral, oak woodland, redwood forest, and grassland ecosystems, characteristic of the region, are well-adapted to fire. Many plants in these ecosystems depend on wildfire for germination cues, restarting the succession cycle, protection against disease, and making nutrients available for uptake.[7]
  • Replenishment of sand for river and ocean beaches: Steep, fractured, granitic slopes, characteristic of the coastal mountain ranges, erode easily, especially when saturated. If a fire has burned the vegetation in the area, and damaged root systems that help stabilize soil, larger than normal debris flows and landslides can occur during the rainy season. Although these processes can pose inconveniences to humans living in affected watersheds, fluvial sediment transport is the main mode of beach sand replenishment on the West Coast. Therefore, fires play an instrumental role in ensuring beach sustainability.[8]
  • Creation of habitat: Fire generally burns in irregular patterns and varies in intensity. The mosaic that results destroys habitat for some animals while creating habitat for others. Cavity nesters, or birds that live in holes in trees, often benefit from fire. One such bird is the endangered California condor whose range is slowly being reestablished on the Central Coast. The wide cavities created by fire in the tops of redwood trees have served as ideal nesting spots for multiple condors on the Big Sur coast (Image 2).[9]



Resources at Stake

Hot, dry conditions on the Central Coast during late spring, summer, and fall contribute to fire risk. In the fall and early winter, it is not atypical for Santa Ana winds to fan and spread active fires.[10] This combination of high temperatures and warm winds contributes to increasing flammability of dead and live fuel sources and is often exacerbated by drought conditions, which sometimes leads to "catastrophic" wildfires.[6]

Potentially Negative Ecological Impacts of Fire

Wildfires have a number of impacts on local ecosystems that could be considered negative. The following is a list of effects that could be considered negative:

  • Ecosystem type conversion: Today's transportation technology allows for humans to travel far distances in a relatively short amount of time. Because of this capability, certain historical biogeographical barriers have been broken down, exposing native ecosystems to a variety of pathogens and plant and animal species that would not otherwise be in a given location. Type conversion, or the conversion of chaparral ecosystems to nonnative grassland, is becoming more common in Central California in the wake of fire.[11] This poses a threat to native flora and fauna because biological invasions have caused extinctions and changes in function of important ecosystem services.[12]
  • Increased turbidity: Turbidity, or the murkiness of water caused by fine, suspended sediment, increases during storm events. When large rainstorms occur on the Central Coast after fire has burned the land, affected watersheds often experience especially high spikes in turbidity. Many of the coastal streams serve as important spawning habitat for endemic steelhead populations. Steelhead are sensitive to turbidity levels as fine sediment can interfere with gill function.[13] Additionally, sediment transport during post-fire rain events can scour out steelhead redds (egg deposits) or cover eggs with fine sediment to the point where developing embryos are starved of oxygen.[14]
  • Crown Fires: Crown fires are considered those that completely burn stands of trees, including the top of the tree (or crown). Some forest types can take a very long time to regenerate after crown fires. Although crown fires can occur on the Central Coast, the effects of severe fires generally persist for only a short amount of time (about 2-3 years).[15]

Negative Impacts for Humans in the Wake of Fire

At the end of the 19th and the beginning of the 20th century, the United States experienced a number of wildfires in a short amount of time that caused a number of human deaths. And so began the general view of fire being a bad thing.[5]
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