Fire in California's Ecosystems

PREFACE

Much has happened in the field of fire ecology since the first edition of Fire in California’s Ecosystems was published in 2006. The Joint Fire Science Program sponsored by the Department of Agriculture and the Department of the Interior has funded numerous projects, chief among them the Fire and Fire Surrogates program, which had several study sites in California. The surge of funding for fire research has resulted in an exponential increase in scientific articles in journals and technical reports. The second edition contains over 1,300 new citations to articles published in the past 10 years. As a result of this new interest in fire, a new generation of fire ecologists has appeared on the scene. This is evidenced by the inclusion of 26 new authors in the list of contributors and the retirement of 14 of our original authors (including two editors). Should a third edition be published, the transition will be complete.

The second edition has four new chapters. Fire weather has been separated from the chapter on fire climate to form a new chapter. This was done to more fully explain the important factors that affect fire behavior. Advances in the methods of characterizing fire regimes, particularly satellite imagery, warranted a new chapter on that topic. Fire can now be studied as a multifaceted phenomenon rather than just bimodal burn or not burned. The emergence and importance of climate change and the human aspects of fire justified separate chapters.

Alterations to fire regimes have resulted in many changes to the biological communities, including changes in vegetation composition and structure and vegetation type conversions or ecosystem migrations. This text details many of these changes, explains how fire has changed as an ecosystem process, and provides insights for determining the direction that the changes might take in the future. As with introductory treatments of any of the elements of natural ecosystems, we are prone to generalization, simplification, and standardization of processes and interactions that are inherently complex. In describing fire effects and regimes we are by necessity guilty of continuing that trend toward simplification. However, we hope that by communicating the concepts of the role that fire plays as a dynamic ecological process, we can communicate the importance of fire’s role in defining what we know as California’s ecosystems. This importance has been underscored by the large fires in the fall of 2017, causing the death of dozens of people and the destruction of thousands of structures. If we are to live in fire-prone ecosystems, we must learn how to adapt to this dynamic force.

This book is intended for use both as a text for learning and teaching the basics of fire ecology and as a reference book on fire in California ecosystems. It synthesizes and expands upon our knowledge of fire as an ecological process and facilitates a better understanding of the complex and dynamic interactions between fire and the other physical and biological components of California ecosystems. Modern western society has tended to view ecosystems within narrowly defined ranges of time and space. Focused studies of ecosystems from the standpoint of individual species within their habitats, individual stands of trees, populations, plant communities, fire events, or watersheds allow us to know specific mechanics of ecosystems but, by nature, do not help us develop a broad view of large dynamic landscapes. On the other hand, studies of broad spatial or temporal application are usually limited in their application to specific examples. Understanding fire in ecosystems requires us to greatly expand our spatial and temporal context to include both discrete fire events that occur on finite landscapes and complex multi-scale burning patterns and processes that are dynamic on large landscapes. We intend this text to present an integrated view of fire in California ecosystems from as wide a spectrum of temporal and spatial scales as possible.

This text is divided into three parts. Part One is an introduction to the study of fire ecology that is intended for use in teaching the basics of fire ecology. Part Two is a treatment of the history, ecology, and management of fire by bioregions and is intended for use as a reference and for teaching fire ecology within the various bioregions within California. Part Three is a treatment of fire management issues and is intended for use as a reference and for teaching fire management from a historical, policy, and issue perspective.

Obviously, a book such as this is not written without the help of many people. First, we would like to thank the many authors of all the chapters; they endured structured outlines, tight deadlines, and an authoritarian group of editors. Heath Norton drew the figures, Daniel Rankin prepared the maps, and Lester Thode created the fire regime graphs for both editions of the book. Without their help, the book would have lacked the consistency and attractiveness that add greatly to its readability. The second edition was written by the authors much on their own time, but with some support from their agencies and employers. All of their support was essential.

CHAPTER ONE

Introduction

Fire and California Vegetation

NEIL G. SUGIHARA, TODD KEELER-WOLF, AND MICHAEL G. BARBOUR

In California, vegetation is the meeting place of fire and ecosystems. The plants are the fuel and fire is the driver of vegetation change. Fire and vegetation are often so interactive that they can scarcely be considered separately from each other.

BARBOUR et al. (1993)

Fire is a vital, dynamic force of nature in California’s ecosystems and shapes the composition and structure of its vegetation. For millennia, human interaction with fire has developed simultaneously around our need to protect ourselves from its harm and the opportunity to use it as a natural resource management tool. As we become more aware of what influences and controls fire, we are gaining an appreciation of the contribution that fire makes to ecosystem complexity and biological diversity. Previous notions that we can, and should, suppress all wildfires to provide for human safety and protect ecological resources are giving way to the realization that we don’t have the ability to completely exclude fire, and that many valued attributes of California’s ecosystems shouldn’t be protected from fire, but actually require fire. To meet both protection and ecological objectives, we must manage wildland fire and adapt our own behavior to coexist with fire. Managing wildland fire is certainly one of the largest and most complex ecosystem management and restoration efforts ever undertaken, and understanding fire and the consequences of its patterns of occurrence and exclusion is essential. This complexity was underscored during the fall of 2017 when over 200,000 ha (500,000 ac) burned, over 9,000 structures destroyed, and over 40 people killed. These fires were driven by high winds under extremely hot and dry conditions into a mixture of development and wildlands.

This revised edition incorporates a better understanding of both fire variability within vegetation patterns and fire-adaptive or non-fire-adaptive life histories of plant species. Our continuously expanding information base is gained through individual studies and through the compilation of information such as the second edition of A Manual of California Vegetation (Sawyer and Keeler-Wolf 2009) and online databases (vegetation.cnps.org).

Fire as an Ecological Process

Much of California has a Mediterranean climate conducive to fire (Pyne et al. 1996) with long dry summers and periods of thunderstorms, low relative humidity, and strong winds. These patterns vary through an extremely wide range of climatic zones and complex topography.

Fire is a physical process, and both its direct and indirect effects are vitally important ecological processes. The heat it produces, the rate at which it spreads, and the effects it has on other ecosystem components are all part of that physical process. Human communities, watersheds, soils, air, plants, and animals are affected in one way or another by fire. Water quality and quantity, soil erosion, smoke, and plant and animal mortality are some of the more obvious effects. Other ecosystem effects are less obvious, but perhaps even more important. During the periods between fires, dead biomass accumulates in Mediterranean ecosystems because weather conditions are favorable for growth, but decomposition is active for only a relatively short moist part of the year. Fire complements decomposition in these systems by periodically removing debris through combustion. Fire has a differential effect on plant species mortality and regeneration, allowing those that are best adapted to fire to be perpetuated.

Pyrogenic vegetation has evolved with recurring fire and includes species that tolerate or even require fire in order to complete their life cycles. There is a continuous feedback loop between fire and vegetation. Fire feeds on vegetation as fuel and cannot reoccur without some minimum burnable, continuous biomass; and the vegetation cannot maintain its occupation of a site without recurring fire. Fire and vegetation are often so interactive that they can scarcely be considered separately from each other. Indeed, for a plant species to persist, the attributes of any fire regime—its seasonality, return interval, size, spatial complexity, intensity, severity, and type—elicit specific responses. We consider fire regimes and vegetation types to be mutually dependent with changes to either, facilitating changes to the other.

In California, animal populations and communities have developed in habitats where fire has been a primary dynamic process. The distribution of most animal species on landscapes has been driven by the patterns of fire and vegetation; controlled by climate, weather, and topography, over space and time. Perpetuation of California’s biological diversity certainly requires fire to be present as a vital ecological process.

It is difficult to overstate the ecological importance of fire in California’s ecosystems. A central theme to this book is that wildfire is a pervasive, natural, environmental factor throughout much of the state, and ignoring its role in ecosystems will seriously limit our ability to manage wildlands in a sustainable, ecologically appropriate, and responsible manner. To better understand the role of fire in California, it is useful to examine the evolution of its vegetation.

California’s Floristic Provinces—Evolution of the Vegetation

The State of California is divided into three floristic provinces: California, Desert, and Great Basin (Baldwin et al. 2012). The California Floristic Province corresponds to the Humid Temperate Domain of Bailey (1996) and Miles and Goudey (1997) and comprises the portion of California west of the mountainous crest. Both the Great Basin Floristic Province and the Desert Floristic Province are in Bailey’s Dry Domain. The vegetation in the provinces evolved from two different floras. These have been termed as the Arcto-Tertiary Flora (cool climate northern origins) and the Madro-Tertiary Flora (warm temperate-tropical Sierra Madre origins) (Axelrod 1958). The Acrto-Tertiary Flora dominates in the North Coast, Sierra Nevada, Klamath Mountains, and Southern Cascades bioregions. Species from the Madro-Tertiary Flora are most common in the Central Valley, Central Coast, Northeastern Plateaus, Southeastern Deserts, South Coast, and the east portion of the Sierra Nevada bioregions.

The modern array of bioregions is a product of millions of years of plant evolution, geologic upheavals, climate change, and plant community adaptation and migration. Millar (2012) provides a cogent modern perspective of the evolution of California’s flora, which we summarize here. Fifty million years ago (Ma), in the Paleocene Epoch, California was low-lying. Increasing temperatures and humidity triggered significant floristic shifts toward tropical species with affinities to taxa now in rain forests of eastern Asia, southern Mexico, and Amazonia. Western California had diverse subtropical plant communities, while upland regions to the east (the proto—Great Basin) supported temperate-adapted species, including many conifers and associates now present in the modern flora.

About 33.5 Ma, abrupt changes in floristic composition and structure took place. Tropical woody angiosperm species disappeared and temperate-adapted species reappeared, especially broad-leaved deciduous trees and conifers. The new plant communities had affinities to modern communities with high geographic variance due to landscape diversity. Highly diverse assemblages with some taxa present in California today and others now native to warmer, and milder climates with year-round rainfall predominated up until about 23 Ma.

Global temperatures rose between 17 Ma and 15 Ma to the highest levels of the past 23 million years. Fossil floras throughout the West reflected adaptations and range shifts in response to these conditions, with increasing latitudinal gradients from coastal environments to inland mountains. Warm dry-adapted species occurred together, alongside now-exotic tropical-subtropical taxa. In the higher ranges of western Nevada and northeast California, fossil assemblages contained diverse conifers and hardwoods.

Fossil floras less than 7 Ma (Pliocene Epoch), showed a Mediterranean-type semiarid climate establishing at low elevations. Grasslands, chaparral, mixed evergreen sclerophyllous forest, and oak woodlands expanded. Elements of the warm-temperate (Madro-Tertiary) flora became dominant throughout low elevations, while cool-temperate Arcto-Tertiary taxa and vegetation retreated to high elevations, riparian areas, or the coastal strip. The Sierra Nevada, Klamath Mountains, and Transverse Ranges were thrust up to ever higher elevations, creating rain shadows to the east that deepened and expanded over time to become today’s hot and cold deserts, dominated by drought-tolerant shrubs, succulent cacti, and short-lived ephemeral herbs.

By the end of the Tertiary (2.6 Ma), many vegetation types of modern California were in place. The beginning of the Quaternary Period brought climate variability and cooling leading to the ice ages. Ice-core records show over 40 cycles of glacial (cold) and interglacial (warm) intervals, each with smaller internal variations. The ice ages of the Pleistocene epoch ended about 10,000 years ago with the arrival of our recent warm epoch, the Holocene.

Quaternary glacial advance and retreat forced vegetation types with their associated fire regimes to migrate upslope and downslope, or southward and northward. California’s mountain chains are largely oriented north-to-south, montane taxa driven south were able to migrate back north during warmer interglacial periods, including the current period. The most recent glacial retreat was completed about 10,000 years ago, but cold and warm periods continue to alternate and short-term climate fluctuations continually affect the location of ecotones.

A cooling trend about 4,000 years ago distinguished the late Holocene from the warm middle Holocene (6,000 years to 4,000 years ago). Between 700 years and 1,100 years ago two major droughts occurred, each lasting more than a century. These caused many large lakes and rivers to dry, and salinities to increase in those that remained. Tree-ring records for the past several hundred years (Michaelsen et al. 1987) show continued fluctuation in temperature, precipitation, and interannual variation at the time scale of one-to-several decades.

Twelve thousand years ago, before humans arrived in California, vegetation type diversity and distribution were different than they are today or than they were at any time during the modern human eras. However, it is likely that fire regimes played a role in sustaining the same vegetation type in the past. Before the modern Anthropocene, fire regimes within a stable vegetation type probably did not change much over time.

Bioregions and the California Landscape

The diversity of the California landscape is well known; from the mist-shrouded mountains of the north coast to the searing heat of the Southeastern Deserts, and from the sun-drenched beaches of the South Coast to the high Sierra Nevada, the range of climate, geomorphology, and vegetation mirrors this diversity. Similarly, fire’s role in each of these bioregions is equally diverse. To give structure to the discussion of fire complexity within these vast and diverse landscapes, we have divided California into a system of bioregions.

If we add up the areas of vegetation types generally regarded as fire-maintained, about 54% of California’s 42 million ha (104 million ac) requires the repeated occurrence of fire to persist (Barbour et al. 2007). Fire-adapted in this case requires major characteristic species of each unit to have adaptions for asexual or sexual regeneration supported by recurring fire. The totals in Table 1.1 are for approximately 55% of the state. A number of natural arid land vegetation types such as desert scrub, alkali desert scrub, Joshua tree woodland, and pinyon-juniper woodland are not well adapted to fire. A number of non-natural anthropogenic land covers such as urban, orchards, and other crops also make up a large proportion of the non-fire adapted land cover. Only some types of desert scrub, alpine tundra, subalpine woodland, and a few, less widespread, vegetation types are not fire-dependent. Even some wetlands—such as bulrush (Schoenoplectus spp.) marsh, riparian forest, and California fan palm (Washingtonia filifera) oases—are fire tolerant and experienced fires set both by indigenous human populations and lightning strikes (Anderson 2005). Knowledge of how fire operates as an ecological process within the State’s various bioregions is part of the foundation for wise management and conservation of California’s natural heritage.

TABLE 1.1

Fire-adapted vegetation types as classified through the Wildlife Habitat Relationships model (WHR website: https://www.dfg.ca.gov/biogeodata/cwhr/) with the percentage of the state mapped as of December 2014

A hierarchical ecosystem classification for ecosystems in the United States was developed based on climate, as affected by latitude, continental position, elevation, and landform (Bailey et al. 1994, Bailey 1996). Miles and Goudey (1997) divided California into 19 sections within Bailey’s system (Table 1.2), and we combine these sections into nine bioregions based on relatively consistent patterns of vegetation and fire regimes (Maps 1.1 and 1.2).

TABLE 1.2

Sections from Miles and Goudey (1997) assigned to bioregions used in this book

MAP 1.1 Shaded relief map of California bioregions, as defined in this book.

MAP 1.2 Ecoregions of California from Miles and Goudey (1997).

The nine bioregions range from the humid northwest corner of the state to the arid southeast. In the North Coast bioregion, numerous valleys and steep coastal and interior mountains create moisture gradients in response to numerous winter storms. The Klamath Mountains bioregion is a complex group of mountain ranges and a diverse flora. Tall volcanoes and extensive lava flows characterize the Southern Cascades and Northeastern Plateau bioregions. Immediately south of the Cascades is the Sierra Nevada bioregion, extending nearly half the length of the state. The Sacramento and San Joaquin rivers flow through broad interior valleys with extensive, nearly flat alluvial floors that constitute the Central Valley bioregion. Coastal valleys and mountains and interior mountains are also typical of the Central Coast bioregion. Southern California with its coastal Valleys and the prominent Transverse and Peninsular Ranges make up the South Coast bioregion. The Mojave, Colorado, and Sonoran deserts along with intervening mountain ranges constitute the Southeastern Desert bioregion.

In Part II of this book, we will examine each bioregion in detail to see how the physical features of the bioregion influence the interactions among fire, vegetation, and other ecosystem components. But first we will take a statewide look at Californians and fire.

Californians and Fire

The arrival of humans in the area that we now know as California had profound influences on fire regimes and the character and distribution of the vegetation. Fire has often been the driving force behind human-induced vegetation change. Native American fire use resulted in many changes to California vegetation, but over several millennia, their activities provided a stabilizing influence for many fire regimes. Relatively speaking, the landscapes of California changed little prior to arrival of Euro-American settlers. Few plant species became extinct, the belts of vegetation in mountains remained nearly the same; the height of mountain peaks, the thickness of sediments beneath meadows and grasslands, the distribution of wetlands, the location of sea level, and the gradients of humidity and aridity from coastal west to interior east shifted little. In Part III of this book we describe how the succession of dominant human cultures that have lived in California view fire, use it, try to suppress it, and deal with its effects on biological and physical resources and on social and political issues.

Dramatic change has clearly occurred in the past two centuries due to nonnative and invasive plants, agriculture, fire exclusion, domesticated livestock, and human populations, which are reaching 100 times denser than that of pre-contact time (Barbour et al. 2007). Much of California’s Central Valley and other fertile areas have been converted to agriculture or urbanized, areas of coastal sage scrub have converted to nonnative grasslands, and many mid-elevation conifer forests have been logged and regenerated with species compositions and stand densities that have little historic precedent.

It is not the occurrence of fire in an ecosystem that constitutes an ecological disturbance, but rather our actions that have led to changes to the characteristic fire regimes. Like vegetation, fire regimes have probably never been completely static, but the pace and magnitude of changes to Californian fire regimes accelerated with the arrival of humans from Asia 12,000+ years ago (Rosenthal and Fitzgerald 2012) and again with the arrival of large numbers of settlers of Euro-American origin with the Gold Rush in the mid-1800s. Despite intensive efforts to suppress wildland fires over the past century, fires have continued to burn.

We can identify several historic periods during which fire regimes were altered, and each time they also profoundly altered the ecosystems. Changes to fire regimes occurred while climate, landforms, and species compositions were also changing. The result of these processes defines current California environments and gives us today’s California vegetation, much of which is transitional. Although vegetation is always changing, the rates of changes during the past 200 years are far more rapid than in the previous 3,000 or so years.

The Era Prior to Human Settlement

Prior to the arrival of humans in California 12,000 years ago (Rosenthal and Fitzgerald 2012), fire regimes were dependent upon fuel build up to the point at which it would support a spreading flame ignited by lightning. The resulting vegetation distributions were different than they are today or at any time during the human settlement eras. However, it is likely that fire regimes that sustain, and prevent vegetation type conversion for a given vegetation type, also played that role in the past.

Only broad generalizations can be drawn from the evidence that has been documented regarding the history of fire in California prior to human settlement. What is known is general in nature and was reconstructed from paleo-ecological evidence. For example, we do know that in the southern California Coast Ranges, pulses of charcoal deposition in sediments indicate a fire regime dominated by infrequent, large fires (Byrne et al. 1977, Mensing 1998, Mensing et al. 1999). Similarly, charcoal deposition increases during the post-glacial period in the Sierra Nevada indicate that fire was prevalent from 13,700 years to 10,400 years ago (Smith and Anderson 1992).

The Native American Era

Once humans arrived in California and elsewhere in North America, they changed fire patterns with additional ignitions that were focused on their resource needs (Stewart 2002, Anderson 2005). Using fire to manipulate vegetation was universal among Native Americans at the time of European contact. Studies show that vegetation changes occurred following the arrival of Native Americans (Keeter 1995) and again with their demise (Mensing 1998). At the time of European contact, California was already inhabited with large populations of indigenous people living and influencing broad landscapes throughout the state (Cook 1973). As detailed in chapter 19, fire was the most significant, effective, efficient, and widely employed vegetation management tool utilized by California Indian tribes. The pattern of burning was often very specific and focused on particular ecosystem effects (Vale 1998).

Indigenous burning practices defined and maintained the physiognomy of many vegetation types, encouraging particular suites of herbaceous and woody plants. The area that burned during this time period was extensive: Martin and Sapsis (1992) estimate that between 2.2 million ha and 5.2 million ha (5.6 million ac and13 million ac) burned annually from both lightning-caused and human-caused ignitions. Stephens et al. (2007) estimate that 1.8 million ha to 4.8 million ha (4.4 million ac to 11.9 million ac) of California vegetation burned annually. Given the relatively high populations of Native Americans in California, most habitable parts of the state where fuel accumulated and which contained a variety of useful plant or animal species would be expected to have been regularly managed by fire. However, given the diversity of ecosystems, uneven indigenous occupation patterns, and the complex fire characteristics of the vegetation types, the effect of burning by indigenous people was neither uniform nor equally applied across landscapes.

The effects of fires set by Native Americans formed a continuum encompassing a range of human modifications from very little or no influence to fully human-created ecosystems. Vale (2002) concludes that the pre-Euro-American landscape in the American West was a mosaic of areas that were altered by native peoples and areas that were primarily affected by natural processes. However, as Pyne (2003) reminds us, in such ecosystems as Mediterranean California, where fire occurs with or without human influence, it is infuriatingly difficult to tease out the originating causes.

The Era of Euro-American and Asian-American Settlement

The early settlement era brought several major changes in the pattern of wildland fire, largely due to the removal of indigenous people and their approach to the land. Newcomers had a very different land-use philosophy and a wider array of tools to modify the landscape. In those ecosystems where burning by Native Americans was a regular practice—California’s warm temperate forests and woodlands, montane meadows, coastal prairies—the demographic change led to changes in species composition, invasion of nonnative plants, and even type conversion of the vegetation. Mining and livestock, initially localized, also had widespread influence. An intensive pulse of sheep grazing during the late 1800s greatly changed fire in much of the western United States by breaking the fuel continuity in the herbaceous layer in which fires spread. Fuel continuity in the herbaceous layer and ignition patterns control how and when fires occur because it is the fuel layer in which fire most commonly spreads. In open forest and woodland ecosystems with herbaceous understory, the reduction and fragmentation of the herbaceous layer greatly reduce the ability of a fire to spread. The result is a reduction in the number of days with conditions under which an area will burn, and therefore a drastic reduction in the frequency of fire. This indirect fire exclusion also allowed vegetation to accumulate biomass, developing different fuel structures, changing species mixes, and shifting the geographic distributions of vegetation types.

Introduction of nonnative, invasive plants during this time also had important impacts on fire patterns in many of California’s ecosystems (Balch et al. 2012, Brooks et al. 2004, Hunter et al. 2006). In the grasslands and oak woodlands of the Central Valley, replacement of native plants with nonnative species has allowed earlier curing of fuel in the spring and heavier fuel loads in the summer and fall extending the fire season at both ends. In general, exotics have had a greater impact in mesic, lower elevation habitats than in harsher habitats at high elevations, on less productive geologic substrates, or in arid deserts. Exotics can aggressively colonize following high-severity fires.

The impact of humans on fire frequency at this time can be deduced in several ways. As a general rule we have detailed records of recent fire patterns, but as we move back in time, this record becomes more fragmented and less specific. Current records of fire occurrence and vegetation severity are available through land management and firefighting agency records and can be supplemented by remote sensing studies to very fine scales of detail. In contrast, written records often go back to the early 1900s, but they are much generalized and describe only unusually large and destructive fires in the early part of the 1900s. Historic photographs, land survey records, and newspaper accounts from the 1800s can supplement fire records (Egan and Howell 2001). Tree-ring studies extend these records back several centuries (and in some cases for millennia in ecosystems containing long-lived species), but they cannot always reconstruct the details of fire intensity, severity, complexity, or area burned. Studies of charcoal deposits, phytoliths, and pollen in lake sediments allow fire history studies to be extended 10,000 years or more into the past, but the interpretations are more generalized and lack the resolution needed to provide the detailed information derived from other methods. Our knowledge of fire history and fire-related vegetation change is built on information developed from a combination of these methods.

The Fire Suppression Era

The industrialization of America in the early to mid-1900s brought demands for the extraction of wildland resources. Protection of forests and rangelands from the scourge of fire was a central part of this era. A fire protection philosophy that was developed in Europe was applied to most plant communities in North America (Wright and Bailey 1982). The primary focus of management in the early National Forest Reserves (1905 to 1910) was protecting the timber supplies and watersheds. Fire was seen as a potential threat to both, and a great deal of effort was committed to the removal of fire in America’s forests.

Stephen Pyne (2001) states, The great fires of 1910 shaped the American fire landscape more than any other fire in any other year throughout the twentieth century. Seventy-eight firefighters were killed and 1.2 million ha (3 million ac) of national forest land burned. These fires instigated the creation of a national system of wildland fire protection that still dominates fire management.

During World War II, the firefighting effort was intensified in the interest of national defense and paired with a public education campaign that included Smokey Bear. The public was now well shielded from the history of human-fire relationships and fighting fires had become The moral equivalent of war (Pyne 1997). After World War II, firefighting efforts were intensified. Science and technology allowed important strides to be made in understanding wildfire spread and its control. The study of fire at this time concentrated on fire physics, fire behavior and the relationships between meteorology and fire. Subsequently, the focus broadened into fire effects on vegetation and ecosystems and the development of the field we know today as fire ecology.

The Ecosystem Management Era

Although fire is a natural, recurring process in most California vegetation, the effects of fire are not always what they once were. A number of factors are driving the continuing change of fire patterns in wildlands, including: (1) the increasing density and expansion of humans on the landscape, (2) the technology used for fire suppression continues to become more sophisticated, effective, and efficient, and (3) the intentional, prescribed use of fire as a tool for fuel management, natural resource management, and the protection of communities at the wildland-urban interface.

Starting in the 1960s and continuing today, the emphasis of fire study has focused on natural resource values and the influence of fire as an ecological process. There has been widespread acceptance of the notion that fire is an important part of many ecosystems and that changes in the patterns of occurrence of fire have had many large-scale vegetation effects. Fire ecology and fire management have become central issues in land management and there is greater recognition of the radiating impact of decisions about how to manage fire. Today, the practice of managing wildland fuel to modify future fire behavior has become an important land management activity. The wildland-urban interface has become the contentious focal point for application of fuel management to difficult situations.

In this book, we provide a great deal of information on the ecological role of fire and how our culture has evolved to recognize and appreciate fire as an ecological process. So are we mounting a massive effort to restore fire to all of our wildlands? No. Why? Fire has both positive and negative effects. Our culture also necessarily values other wildland attributes including clean air and water, species and habitats, and living in desirable locations without fire to threaten our health and quality of life.

Fire affected past vegetation patterns, and fire will influence future vegetation patterns. With the current trends in population growth and development and changing climate, fire regimes are likely to remain altered from pre-Euro-American settlement conditions. Wildland fire patterns will continue to change with wildfires pushed to burn mainly during increasingly extreme weather and fuel conditions, while the restoration of fire as an ecological process will occur on a relatively small proportion of California’s landscape. Large percentages of the state’s natural vegetation can shift over very short periods. Changing climate will work in combination with fire to change fire occurrence and severity. Fire patterns that influence the distributions of forests, woodlands, shrublands, and herbaceous vegetation will change. The impacts of nonnative invasive species will continue to change fuel conditions, and thus fire and vegetation patterns. Simultaneously, understanding of the importance of fire in California vegetation will grow, and the decisions on how to manage fire-adapted vegetation will remain difficult.

This book is an effort to summarize fire’s historic and current role in California’s ecosystems, and to provide an understanding of fire as an ecological process to facilitate wise management into the future. This story of fire and California’s vegetation is an epic adventure played out over millennia in a spectacular setting. This book sets the scenes, introduces the characters and situations and provides you, the future of fire ecology, with concepts and some of the tools to write the next act.

References

Anderson, M.K. 2005. Tending the Wild: Native American Knowledge and the Management of California’s Natural Resources. University of California Press, Berkeley, California, USA.

Axelrod, D.I. 1958. Evolution of Madro-Tertiary geoflora. Botanical Review 24: 433–509.

Bailey, R.G. 1996. Ecosystem Geography. Springer, New York, New York, USA.

Bailey, R.G., P.E. Avers, T. King, and W.H. McNab, editors. 1994. Ecoregions and Subregions of the United States (map). U.S. Geological Survey, Washington, D.C., USA.

Baldwin, B.G., D.H. Goldman, D.J. Keil, R. Patterson, T.J. Rosatti, and D.H. Wilken, editors. 2012. The Jepson Manual: Vascular Plants of California, 2nd ed. University of California Press, Berkeley, California, USA.

Balch, J.K., B.A. Bradley, C.M. D’Antonio, and J. Gómez-Dans. 2012. Introduced annual grass increases regional fire activity across the arid western USA (1980–2009). Global Change Biology 19: 173–183.

Barbour, M.G., T. Keeler-Wolf, and A.A. Schoenherr. 2007. Terrestrial Vegetation of California, 3rd ed. University of California Press, Berkeley, California, USA.

Barbour, M.G., B. Pavlik, F. Drysdale, and S. Lindstrom. 1993. California’s Changing Landscapes: Diversity and Conservation of California Vegetation. California Native Plant Society, Sacramento, California, USA.

Brooks, M.L., C.M. D’Antonio, D.M. Richardson, J.B. Grace, and J.E. Keeley. 2004. Effects of invasive alien plants on fire regimes. BioScience 54: 677–688.

Byrne, R., J. Michaelsen, and A. Soutar. 1977. Fossil charcoal as a measure of wildfire frequency in Southern California: a preliminary analysis. Pages 361–367 in: H.A. Mooney and C.E. Conrad, technical coordinators. Proceedings of the Symposium on Environmental Consequences of Fire and Fuel Management in Mediterranean Ecosystems. USDA Forest Service General Technical Report WO-3, Washington, D.C., USA.

Cook, S.F. 1973. The aboriginal population of upper California. Pages 66–72 in: R.F. Heizer and M.A. Whipple, editors. The California Indians. University of California Press, Berkeley, California, USA.

Egan, D., and E.A. Howell. 2001. The Historical Ecology Handbook–A Restorationist’s Guide to Reference Ecosystems. Island Press, Washington, D.C., USA.

Hunter, M.E., P.N. Omi, E.J. Martinson, and G.W. Chong. 2006. Establishment of non-native plant species after wildfires: effects of fuel treatments, abiotic and biotic factors, and post-fire grass seeding treatment. International Journal of Wildland Fire 15: 271–281.

Keeter, T.S. 1995. Environmental History and Cultural Ecology of the North Fork of the Eel River Basin, California. USDA Forest Service Technical Publication R5-EM-TP-002, Pacific Southwest Region, Vallejo, California, USA.

Martin, R.E., and D.B. Sapsis. 1992. Fires as agents of biodiversity: Pyrodiversity promotes biodiversity. Pages 28–31 in: R.R. Harris, D.E. Erman, and H.M. Kerner, editors. Proceedings of Symposium on Biodiversity of Northwestern California. Wildland Resource Center Report 29, University of California, Berkeley, California, USA.

Mensing, S.A. 1998. 560 years of vegetation change in the region of Santa Barbara, California. Madroño 45: 1–11.

Mensing, S.A., J. Michaelsen, and R. Byrne. 1999. A 560-year record of Santa Ana fires reconstructed from charcoal deposited in the Santa Barbara Basin, California. Quaternary Research 51: 295–305.

Michaelsen, J., L., Haston, and F.W. Davis. 1987. 400 years of California precipitation reconstructed from tree rings. Water Research Bulletin 23: 809–818.

Miles, S.R., and C.B. Goudey. 1997. Ecological Subregions of California: Section and Subsection Descriptions. USDA Forest Service Technical Publication R5-EM-TP-005, Pacific Southwest Region, Vallejo, California, USA.

Millar, C.I. 2012. Geologic, climatic, and vegetation history of California. Pages 49–67 in: B.G. Baldwin, D.H. Goldman, D.J. Keil, R. Patterson, T.J. Rosatti, and D.D. Wilken, editors. The Jepson Manual: Vascular Plants of California, 2nd ed. University of California Press, Berkeley, California, USA.

Pyne, S.J. 1997. America’s Fires–Management on Wildlands and Forests. Forest History Society, Durham, North Carolina, USA.

———. 2001. Year of the Fires–The Story of the Great Fires of 1910. Viking Penguin, New York, New York, USA.

———. 2003. Smokechasing. University of Arizona Press, Tucson, Arizona, USA.

Pyne, S.J., P.L. Andrews, and R.D. Laven. 1996. Introduction to Wildland Fire. John Wiley and Sons, New York, New York, USA.

Rosenthal, J.S., and R.T. Fitzgerald. 2012. The Pleistocene Holocene transition in western California. Pages 67–104 in: C.B. Bousman and J. Vierra, editors. From the Pleistocene to the Holocene: Human Organization and Cultural Transformations in Prehistoric North America. Texas A&M University Press, College Station, Texas, USA.

Sawyer, J.O., and T. Keeler-Wolf. 2009. A Manual of California Vegetation, 2nd ed. California Native Plant Society, Sacramento, California, USA.

Smith, S.J., and R.S. Anderson. 1992. Late Wisconsin paleoecologic record from Swamp Lake, Yosemite National Park, California. Quaternary Research 38: 91–102.

Stephens, S.L., R.E. Martin, and N.E. Clinton. 2007. Prehistoric fire area and emissions from California’s forests, woodlands, shrublands and grasslands. Forest Ecology and Management 251: 205–221.

Stewart, O.C. 2002. Forgotten Fires–Native Americans and the Transient Wilderness. University of Oklahoma Press, Norman, Oklahoma, USA.

Vale, T.R. 1998. The myth of the humanized landscape: an example from Yosemite National Park. Natural Areas Journal 18: 231–236.

———. editor. 2002. Fire, Native Peoples, and the Natural Landscape. Island Press, Washington, D.C., USA.

Wright, H.R., and A.W. Bailey. 1982. Fire Ecology: United States and Southern Canada. John Wiley and Sons, New York, New York, USA.

PART ONE

INTRODUCTION TO FIRE ECOLOGY

Part One is an introduction to fire ecology. In chapter 2 we describe how climate influence fires and fire regimes. Chapter 3 is a detailed examination of the weather factors that affect fire behavior. We then describe factors that affect fire as a physical process in chapter 4 before discussing fire as an ecological process and fully developing the concept of fire regimes in Chapter 5. Chapter 6 examines the methods used to characterize fire regimes. Next we discuss the interactions of fire with the soil, water, and air components of the physical environment in Chapter 7. Finally, in chapters 8 and 9, we cover the effects of fires on biological communities, first looking at interactions with plants and then with animals. This foundation in fire ecology will provide the basis for understanding fire’s varying role in the bioregions of California and the issues confronting fire in today’s society.

CHAPTER TWO

California Fire Climate

RICHARD A. MINNICH

I’ve lived in good climate, and it bores the hell out of me. I like weather rather than climate.

STEINBECK (1962)

Introduction

To understand fire as an earth surface process in California ecosystems, it is necessary to evaluate how climate (average and predictable weather properties over long time scales) contributes to vegetation flammability, and how short-term weather influences the propagation of flame lines (fire weather). The flammability of vegetation can be envisioned as a tug of war between the heat source of the organic energy of plants (carbohydrate), and the heat sink of plant water vital for transport of nutrients and leaf transpiration. Fires occur when fuel energy exceeds the heat capacity of water, i.e., the carbohydrate-to-water energy ratio in vegetation is positive (Rothermel 1972). Climate and weather both affect plant growth and fuel buildup, as well as water/fuel moisture in vegetation and soils, but they reflect different time scales and processes. Climatic parameters include mean precipitation and temperature that affect annual cycles of soil wetting, water loss by evapotranspiration and runoff, plant growth, phenology, desiccation of vegetation, and natural ignitions from thunderstorms. The predictable properties of California’s Mediterranean climate are winter precipitation, summer drought, and mild temperatures in most areas of the State. Climate variability at interannual to decadal time scales is believed to correlate with periodic perturbations in the fire regime. Weather, especially relative humidity and wind velocity, affects fuel moisture, heat release in flame lines (fire intensity), and available fuel consumed in pyrolysis. Relative humidity and wind speed influence plant transpiration and water diffusion in dead fuel. Because organic fuels are poor heat conductors and radiative heat transfer from burning vegetation to adjoining unburned vegetation is inversely related to the square of the distance, wind speed (advection) is the dominant mechanism of heat transfer in the propagation of flame lines. Decreasing relative humidity and increasing wind velocity tend to result in higher fire spread rates and intensities, as well as the consumption of ever-coarser fuels.

This chapter reviews California’s Mediterranean climate from the standpoint of atmospheric circulation. This is followed by a discussion of climate variability and its possible role on fire regimes. For those interested in the fundamentals of global circulation, see the first edition of this volume. The principles of fire weather are reviewed in chapter 3 and climate change in chapter 26.

Climate

The large variety of climates in California leads to a large diversity in vegetation and associated fire regimes, as well as fire weather conditions. The Mediterranean climate results from seasonal changes in global circulation, including California’s location relative to the jet stream and the presence of cold, upwelling ocean waters offshore. During winter, large latitudinal temperature gradients support a strong circumpolar vortex with the mean position of jet stream westerlies extending equatorward to the latitude of northern California, Oregon, and Washington (Jet stream) (Fig. 2.1).

FIGURE 2.1 Mean 500-mbar contours for: (A) January and (B) July. Low pressure is centered near the pole, with westerly winds moving around the hemisphere in a direction parallel to contours (geostrophic wind). The entire counterclockwise flowing system is the circumpolar vortex. The westerlies are strongest in January when the latitudinal temperature gradient is strongest and jet stream (where contours are closest together) arrives at the Pacific Coast in Oregon and Washington. Westerlies are weakest in July when the latitudinal temperature gradient is at a minimum and the mean position of the jet stream retreats to western Canada (redrawn from Palmén and Newton 1969).

Troughs in the jet stream bring low pressure systems and precipitation. At the surface, low pressure in the Gulf of Alaska advects strong onshore flows of moist westerlies to northern California and the Pacific Northwest and mild temperatures through the state. Annual rainfall is greatest on the windward slope of the mountains due to orographic lift of air masses, and lowest in the deserts due to the rain shadow effect of the mountains. In summer reduced latitudinal temperature gradients weaken the circumpolar vortex, and the mean position of the westerlies and precipitation shifts northward to British Columbia. Surface low pressure in the Gulf of Alaska is replaced by a high pressure that covers most of the North Pacific Ocean. California is dominated by strong onshore flows from the Pacific high to thermal low pressure over the hot desert interior. Air masses are warmer than the ocean, except for a thin layer of cool, moist air, immediately over the ocean surface, called the coastal marine layer. The marine layer is also the northeastern boundary of the trade wind layer of the Hadley cell in the North Pacific Ocean. The presence of warm light air overlying the marine layer results in stable air masses that leads to protracted drought.

Temperature

The position of the jet stream is coupled with global atmospheric latitudinal temperature gradients. Mean winter temperatures increase southward, and in the mountains also reflect atmospheric lapse rates (Map 2.1). Sea level temperatures increase from 9°C (48°F) in coastal northern California to 14°C (57°F) in coastal southern California and 12°C (54°F) in the southeastern deserts. Mean temperatures in the mountains reach freezing at about 1,500 m (4,921 ft) in northern California and 2,200 m (7,218 ft) in southern California. Many low-lying basins contain persistent surface-based inversions resulting from the combination of radiational cooling and low insolation. In the Central Valley, where surface-based inversions are maintained by reflective ground fogs, mean January temperatures average 8°C (46°F). From the high northeastern plateaus to Lake Tahoe, inversions result in mean temperatures as low as –3°C (27°F) on valley floors.

MAP 2.1 Mean temperature (°C) for January.

In summer the coastal valleys and mountain slopes are influenced by the coastal marine layer, a steady-state feature that forms from the cooling and moistening of the tropospheric boundary layer overlying the cold California current. The marine layer is associated with extensive coastal low clouds (stratus) over the ocean and is capped by a strong thermal inversion that divides it from warm, subsiding air masses aloft. Northwesterly gradient winds combined with sea breezes and anabatic valley winds and mountain upward slope winds (winds created by local surface heating) transport marine air inland to the coastal ranges usually within 100 km (62 mi) of the coast before the marine layer dissipates from diabatic heating and mixing with warm air aloft (Glendening et al. 1986). Mean July temperatures along the coast reflect gradients in sea surface temperatures, ranging from 14–16°C (57–61°F) in strong upwelling zones north of Point Conception to 18–22°C (64–72°F) in the southern California bight (Map 2.2), the embayment between Point Conception and the Mexican border. Air temperatures increase to 24–28°C (75–82°F) in the inland valleys of southern California and along the Central Valley. The deserts beyond the reach of marine air penetration average 26–35°C (79–95°F) to as warm as 38°C (100°F) in Death Valley. Temperatures in mountains reflect ambient lapse rates and are isoclinal with latitude, decreasing to 20–24°C (68–75°F) at 1,500 m (4,921 ft) and 14–18°C (57–64°F) at 2,500 m (8,202 ft).

MAP 2.2 Mean temperature (°C) for July.

Precipitation

Winter precipitation results from frontal cyclones and associated troughs of the jet stream that move over California from the North Pacific Ocean. Because the mean position of the jet stream lies in northern California (Fig. 2.1), storms decrease in frequency southward through the state. Most precipitation falls in the prefrontal zone (usually from the cold front to 100–300 km [62–186 mi] to the east [Fig. 2.2]). Upward air motions lift cool marine layer, the cold fronts having properties of occluded fronts with long periods of steady rain in stable air. Winds aloft are predominantly southwesterly because frontal zones precede trough axes aloft; low-level winds veer from the south or southeast. Postfrontal precipitation consists of convective showers concentrated over high terrain with upper winds backing from westerly at the surface to southwesterly aloft. Clouds and precipitation decrease rapidly with the onset of subsidence and advection of dry air following the passage of the trough, with winds aloft shifting to westerly to northwesterly.

FIGURE 2.2 Schematic of a model cyclone. Pressure pattern (dashed lines) of surface cyclone in middle and anticyclones on right and left shown against wave in the jet stream (solid lines). Frontal boundaries are shown as solid ticked boundaries. Broad arrows show the trajectories of air motion through the system, with sinking air west of the front and rising air east of the front (redrawn from Palmén and Newton 1965).

The interaction between prefrontal circulation and terrain results in strong gradients in mean annual precipitation throughout California. Because storm air masses are stable, the variation in local precipitation is normally a consequence of the dynamic (mechanical) lift of cyclones and attendant physical lift of storm air masses over mountain barriers (orographic effect) rather than from thermal convection. Intense precipitation gradients at local scales in California’s mountains are a consequence of stable storm air masses in which the highest precipitation zones reflect windward slope gradients, not altitude. Relatively low, precipitating cloud layers (cloud tops to 3–4 km [2–2.5 mi] msl), fast-moving wind fields and associated high water vapor flux of the jet stream couple mechanical lift in laminar flow with local physiography along windward slopes (high-standing precipitation rates) and descent (low precipitation rates) on leeward slopes. Increasingly weak dynamic (mechanical) lift of storm air masses southward through California paradoxically magnifies mountain orographic precipitation zones because less precipitation is spent upwind in the coastal and interior plains.

Orographic lift is most intense on the south- to southwest-facing escarpments that lie at right angles to prefrontal storm winds (Fig. 2.2). Hence, orographic precipitation processes extend southwest to northeast, not west to east. Amounts progressively decrease downwind to inland ranges—regardless of altitude—due to cumulative depletion of storm air mass moisture and descending airflow in rain shadows. The average annual precipitation along the northern California coast varies from 50 cm (20 in) at San Francisco to 100 cm (39 in) north of Ft. Bragg, with locally higher amounts where mountains skirt the coastline (Map 2.3). The highest amounts occur in the coastal mountains north of Eureka and near Cape Mendocino where the annual average is >250 cm (>98 in). Totals in the North Coast Ranges decrease downwind to 150–200 cm (59–79 in) in the Salmon and Siskiyou Ranges, and further decrease southward with the declining general altitude of the mountains to 100 cm (39 in) near Santa Rosa. Rain shadows from the North Coast Ranges produce average annual precipitation of 35–50 cm (14–20 in) in the Sacramento Valley. Orographic lift along the uniformly gentle western slope of the northern Sierra Nevada produces an average annual precipitation of 60 cm (24 in) along the lower foothills to 150–200 cm (59–79 in) at the crest of the range north of Lake Tahoe. East of the Sierra Nevada crest, rain shadows in descending air reduce the average annual precipitation to only 20–60 cm (8–24 in) in the Modoc Plateau, and 60–80 cm (24–31 in) in the Lake Tahoe Basin.

MAP 2.3 Mean annual precipitation in inches.

SOURCE: Western Regional Climate Center, Desert Research Institute, Las Vegas, Nevada.

In the Central Coast Ranges, the average annual precipitation is 100–150 cm (39–59 in) on the steep coastal escarpments of the Santa Cruz and Santa Lucia Mountains but amounts in the rain-shadowed Diablo Ranges seldom exceed 50 cm (20 in). Intervening basins including Salinas Valley receive 30–40 cm (12–16 in). Rain shadows extending from the South Coast Ranges into the San Joaquin Valley produce an average annual precipitation of 30 cm (12 in) near the Sacramento delta, lowering to 15 cm (6 in) near Bakersfield and the Carrizo Plain. Amounts then increase with orographic lift to 35–50 cm (14–20 in) in the Sierra Nevada foothills. The topographic complexity of the southern Sierra Nevada coastal front results in large variability in average annual precipitation. Steep southwestern exposures have averages of 100–150 cm (39–59 in) from Yosemite to Kaiser Ridge, the Great Western Divide, and the Greenhorn Range. Leeward slopes receive 50–100 cm (20–39 in), including the upper Tuolumne River, Mono Creek Basin, the upper Kings River, and the Kern River plateau northward to Mt. Whitney. The average annual precipitation seldom exceeds 50 cm (20 in) in the southernmost Sierra Nevada and Tehachapi Mountains due to their low altitude and leeward position to the western Transverse and South Coast Ranges.

In southern California, precipitation is greatest in the Transverse Ranges (average annual precipitation, 80–110 cm [31–43 in]) due to intense orographic lift along the steep coastal escarpment. Amounts decrease to 60–80 cm (24–31 in) in the downwind San Rafael Mountains and Pine Mountain Ridge. Farther inland, relatively high Mt. Pinos, as well as the San Emigdio, Tehachapi and Liebre Mountains, and drainages north and east of Big Bear Basin, receive 35–60 cm (14–24 in). The average annual precipitation is only 40–60 cm (16–24 in) in the Peninsular Ranges because the coastal slopes lie parallel to storm winds. Amounts reach 80–100 cm (31–39 in) on local southern escarpments of the Santa Ana Mountains, Palomar Mountain, and Cuyamaca Peak. Despite their high altitude, the San Jacinto Mountains receive 40–70 cm (16–28 in) and the Santa Rosa Mountains >50 cm (>20 in) due to their leeward position relative to the Santa Ana and Palomar Mountains. The average annual precipitation in the southern California coastal plain varies from 25–35 cm (10–14 in) at the shoreline to 40–50 cm (16–20 in) at the base of the mountains.

The average annual precipitation in the southeastern deserts is mostly 10–15 cm (4–6 in), with totals as low as 5 cm (2 in) in Death Valley and the Coachella-Imperial Valley. Amounts locally reach 25 cm (10 in) in the Panamint and Inyo Mountains, and several ranges in the northeast Mojave Desert.

Snowfall

In most of California, the replenishment of soil water reflects the timing of rainstorms during the winter, which mostly end by March or April. In high mountain watersheds, an accumulating winter snowpack melt serves to increase available soil moisture in summer because melt is delayed until high solar zenith angles in April and May, thereby postponing soil drying and plant desiccation and drying of dead fuels compared to rain-dominated lands below. In effect, the snowpack represents a second layer of water storage on top of moisture storage in the soil and regolith layers (Graham et al. 2010).

The ratio of average frozen precipitation (mostly snow hypothetically melted to a liquid depth) ratioed to the average annual precipitation shows a linear relationship with altitude. In southern California, little snowfall occurs below 1,000 m (3,281 ft). The ratios increase to 25% at 1,750 m (5,741 ft), 75% at 2,750 m (9,022 ft) and 100% at 3,000 m (9,843 ft) (Minnich 1986). Average snow lines are about 200–400 m (656–1,312 ft) lower in the Sierra Nevada (Barbour et al. 1991). With an average annual precipitation of 100 cm (39 in), the Snow Water Equivalent (SWE) in southern California reaches 50 cm (20 in) at 2,300 m (7,546 ft) and 75 cm (30 in) at 2,700 m (8,858 ft). With an average annual precipitation of 150 cm (59 in) near Yosemite, the SWE reaches 50 cm (20 in) at 1,900 m (6,234 ft) and 75 cm (30 in) at 2,200 m (7,218 ft). At Mt. Lassen (average annual precipitation, 200 cm [79 in]), 50 cm (20 in) SWE amounts are reached by 1,400 m (4,593) and 100 cm (39 in) by 2,000 m (6,562 ft). Interannual snow levels in California tend to increase with increasing total annual precipitation due largely to advection of moist subtropical air masses (atmospheric rivers). In southern California, the 50% annual snow line increases from 2,000 m (6,562 ft) with 70% normal precipitation to 2,400 m (7,574 ft) with 140% of normal. The snow line during the floods of January 1969 ranged from 2,700 to 3,000 m (8,858–9,843 ft). The snow line during the New Year’s 1997 flood at Yosemite was >2,500 m (>8,202 ft).

The North American Monsoon

From July to early September, the North American monsoon brings occasional afternoon thunderstorms and lightning to California. For 10–20 days per summer, the western margin of the North American monsoon, a deep layer of moist, unstable tropical air, extends northward from Mexico into the eastern mountains and deserts of California (Tubbs 1972). The monsoon arrives from the tropical Pacific and Gulf of California around an anticyclone in the mid-troposphere centered over the southwestern US desert. The anticyclone is sustained by intense convective heating off the high elevation land surfaces of the Great Basin, Colorado Plateau, and Mexican plateau (Hales 1974, Adams and Comrie 1997, Stensrud et al. 1997).

The occurrence of thunderstorms in California is related to the position of the anticyclone (Minnich et al. 1993). When the jet stream passes over the Pacific Northwest, the anticyclone is typically centered over northern Mexico (Figs. 2.3A and 2.4A). Dry southwesterly flow over California results in mostly clear skies, even over the highest mountains. Monsoon moisture is steered northeastward into northwestern Mexico and Arizona. Deep troughs destabilize Pacific air masses and produce thunderstorms in the mountains of far northern California. When the jet stream is displaced northward into British Columbia, the center of the anticyclone shifts northward over the Colorado Plateau or Great Basin. South to southeasterly winds aloft transport tropical moisture (Figs. 2.3B and 2.4B) into southwestern California and the Sierra Nevada. Moisture arrives at upper levels (3–4 km [1.9–2.5 mi]) as convective debris from afternoon and night thunderstorms and mesoscale convective systems over the Sierra Madre Occidental of northwestern Mexico and Gulf of California. Below 2 km (1.2 mi), low-level moist air masses derived from convective outflows of thunderstorms over Mexico surge into the Salton Sea trough, Colorado River Valley, and occasionally as far north as Owens Valley (Hales 1974, Adams and Comrie 1997, Stensrud et al. 1997). Moisture surges also result from the lift of the trade wind layer overlying the Gulf of California by Mexican Pacific tropical cyclones passing to the south.

FIGURE 2.3 500-mbar circulation models in California: (A) dry southwesterly flow over California and (B) southeasterly North American monsoon types (from Minnich et al. 1993).

FIGURE 2.4 Conceptual model of afternoon weather conditions for: (top) dry southwesterly flow and (bottom) southeasterly North American monsoon types. MR = hypothetical mixing ratio profiles of atmospheric moisture. Chaotic lines and bubbles represent superheated air updrafts (redrawn from Minnich et al. 1993).

Convection tends to be concentrated over high terrain, especially in mountains exposed to low-level Gulf of California air masses, primarily east of a line from the Peninsular Ranges and eastern San Bernardino Mountains to the eastern escarpment of the Sierra Nevada. Average annual summer precipitation (July–September) ranges from 5 to 10 cm (2–6 in) in the most favorable areas of convection. Amounts decrease toward the west because of stable air produced by Pacific marine layer intrusions. Infrequent surges of anomalously moist air encourage outbreaks of thunderstorms throughout California, even along the Pacific Coast. Large potential evapotranspiration (PET) rates compared to summer precipitation limits soil wetting to shallow soils (Franco-Vizcaíno et al. 2002), and monsoon rains seldom interrupt the fire season. Mexican Pacific tropical cyclones enter the State about once a decade, mostly in southern California. These storms are steered northward by southerly upper air winds of the first seasonal troughs or cutoff lows west of California, usually in September, and may produce copious precipitation of 5–20 cm (2–8 in) per day (Smith 1986).

Lightning

In 1985, the Bureau of Land Management installed a system of electromagnetic direction finders in the western United States that record radiation emitted by cloud-to-ground lightning strikes, with lightning located by triangulation within 5 km (3.1 mi) resolution. Over short time scales, the detection of lightning reflects the paths of individual thunderstorm cells. Over time scales of weeks, months, and years, the distribution of lightning strikes reflects a combination of regional circulation and differences in air mass instability with terrain, primarily during the North American monsoon. Lightning detections are highest from Peninsular Ranges of southern California to the eastern crest of the Sierra Nevada and the desert ranges and basins.

During the period from 1985 through 2000, over 1,000,000 lightning strikes were detected in California (van Wagtendonk and Cayan 2008) with nearly half of those occurring in the Southeast Desert bioregion (Table 2.1). On a per